LIBRARY 

XJOTVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.  I 


Charles 


2,elanl> 


A  BIOGRAPHY 

BY 

ELIZABETH  ROBINS  PENNELL 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.    I 

WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


Lamia* 

ARCHIBALD  CONSTABLE  &  CO.  LTD. 

BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 

1906 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


COPYRIGHT    1905   AND   1906  BY   ELIZABETH    ROBINS   PENNELL 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


Published  September  iqob 


TO 

HIS   SISTER 
EMILY  LELAND   HARRISON 


PREFACE 

MY  chief  authorities  in  writing  the  Life  of 
Charles  Godfrey  Leland  have  been  the  "Me 
moirs"  he  published  during  his  lifetime  and  the 
papers  he  left  to  me  after  his  death.  But  I  owe 
a  great  deal  to  many  of  his  relations  and  friends, 
who  have  done  all  within  their  power  to  aid  me. 
His  sister,  Mrs.  John  Harrison,  has  come  to  my 
assistance  in  every  possible  way.  With  her  son, 
Mr.  Leland  Harrison,  and  my  brother,  Mr. 
Edward  Robins,  she  has  gone  through  a  vast 
accumulation  of  family  papers,  and  she  has 
entrusted  me  with  a  large  part  of  the  family 
correspondence.  For  many  of  his  letters,  I  am 
indebted  also  to  the  kindness  of  the  late  Lady 
Besant,  Mrs.  Edwin  Edwards,  Miss  Lily  Doer- 
ing,  Miss  Annie  Dymes,  Miss  Mary  Owen,  Mr. 
David  MacRitchie,  Mr.  J.  Dyneley  Prince,  Mr. 
J.  C.  Groome,  Mr.  T.  Fisher  Unwin.  I  am 
also  indebted  to  Mr.  Charles  Eliot  Norton  for 
authority  to  reproduce  a  hitherto  unpublished 
letter  by  James  Russell  Lowell,  and  to  my 
publishers,  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Com- 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


pany,-for  their  permission  to  quote  several  letters 
from  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.  My  thanks 
are  also  due  to  Lord  Tennyson,  for  permission 
to  include  the  letters  of  his  father;  to  Lord 
Lytton,  who  has  allowed  me  to  print  those  of  his 
grandfather;  to  Mrs.  Donkin  and  Messrs.  Kegan 
Paul,  Trench,  Triibner  and  Company,  who  have 
consented  to  my  use  of  Professor  E.  H.  Palmer's 
letters;  to  Mr.  Barrett  Browning  and  Messrs. 
Smith,  Elder  and  Company,  who  have  been  as 
generous  with  Browning's.  I  have  to  thank  no 
less  Sir  John  Stirling  Maxwell,  Lady  Burne- 
Jones,  Mr.  Hubert  Smith,  the  late  Lady  Besant, 
Mrs.  Boker,  Mrs.  Van  de  Velde,  Mr.  J.  C. 
Groome,  in  the  case  of  the  letters  of  Mrs. 
Norton,  Burne- Jones,  Borrow,  Besant,  George 
Boker,  Bret  Harte,  Francis  Groome,  whom, 
respectively,  they  represent;  and  Mr.  Mac- 
Ritchie  and  Mr.  John  Sampson,  in  the  case 
of  their  own,  so  important  in  the  history  of  the 
Romany  Ryes.  Dr.  Moncure  D.  Con  way  has 
been  as  kind.  M.  Bracquemond  has  placed  his 
portrait  at  my  disposal.  Old  friends,  like  Mr. 
John  E.  Norcross,  who  was  on  the  "Philadel 
phia  Press"  in  the  early  newspaper  days,  and 
the  friends  of  later  years,  like  the  Rev.  J.  Wood 
Brown,  have  been  helpful  in  supplying  me  with 


PREFACE  ix 

facts  and  suggestive  reminders.  It  is  a  pleasure 
to  me  to  express  my  indebtedness  to  all  those 
who,  through  their  affection  for  my  uncle  and 
their  appreciation  of  his  work,  have  enabled  me 
to  complete  the  story  of  his  life. 

E.  R.  P. 

LONDON,  14  BUCKINGHAM  STREET,  STRAND, 
July  10, 1906. 


CONTENTS 

I.   EARLY  YEARS i 

II.    PRINCETON 40 

III.  HEIDELBERG 65 

IV.  MUNICH 95 

V.   PARIS  IN  '48     ....                 .  129 

VI.   YEARS  OF  STORM  AND  STRESS     .        .  205 

VII.   YEARS  OF  STORM  AND  STRESS  (Continued)  265 

VIII.   HANS  BREITMANN 322 

IX.   THE  FIRST  HOLIDAY    .        .        .        .  371 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND,  FROM  A  PHOTOTYPE  BY 
GUTEKUNST  ....  Frontispiece 

LETTER  FROM  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES  ON  THE 

BURIAL  OF  N.  P.  WILLIS  .  .  .  .12 

SILHOUETTE  OF  MR.  LELAND,  MADE  AT  HEIDEL- 

• 

BERG    IN    1846 78 

PAGE  OF  LETTER  FROM  MR.  LELAND  .  .  146 
PAGE  OF  LETTER  FROM  MR.  LELAND  .  .  .200 

PAGE  OF  LETTER  FROM  MR.  LELAND  IN  PARIS  230 
PERMIT  USED  BY  MR.  LELAND  WHEN  PROSPECTING 

FOR  OIL 278 

LETTER  FROM  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL  .  .  290 

PROFESSOR  E.  H.  PALMER  .....  332 
TWO  ADDITIONAL  VERSES  TO  "  SCHNITZERL's  PHI- 

LOSOPEDE,"  WRITTEN  IN  1882  .  .  .  364 

DRAWING  TO  ILLUSTRATE  TWO  ADDITIONAL  VERSES  365 

PLATE  DECORATED  BY  MR.  LELAND  .  .  .  386 
POWDER  HORN  IN  PAPIER-MACH£,  MADE  AND 

DECORATED    BY    MR.    LELAND      .  .  .  386 


CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

CHAPTER  I 

EARLY  YEARS 

IT  had  for  long  been  understood  between  us 
that  I  was  to  finish  the  "  Memoirs  "  of  my 
uncle,  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  if  he  did  not 
live  to  finish  them  himself.  He  talked  the 
matter  over  with  me,  on  the  far  too  rare  occa 
sions  during  his  later  years  when  I  went  to 
see  him  at  Florence  where  he  lived,  or  joined 
him  at  Siena,  Baveno,  or  Homburg,  where  he 
spent  his  summers.  He  entered  further  into 
detail  during  the  last  weeks  of  all  which  I 
spent  with  him,  the  year  before  his  death,  in 
the  mountains  above  Pistoia.  He  made  in 
numerable  notes  and  minute  "  Memoranda"  to 
help  me.  He  left  all  his  papers,  all  his  letters, 
all  his  manuscripts,  to  my  care.  I  was  to  take 
up  the  thread  of  the  story  where  he  had 
dropped  it,  and  this  he  thought  I  could  do  the 
better  because,  in  his  published  "  Memoirs," 


2    CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

he  had  almost  reached  the  period  when  for 
a  while  I  was  constantly  with  him  —  his  daily 
companion. 

But  no  sooner  did  the  time  come  to  carry 
out  his  wishes,  and  I  re-read  the  "  Memoirs," 
than  I  felt  the  impossibility  of  doing  the  work 
in  exactly  the  manner  both  he  and  I  had 
thought  it  could  be  done.  The  "  Memoirs  " 
are  so  entirely,  so  intimately,  so  essentially 
his,  and  he  was  a  man  of  such  marked  indi 
viduality,  a  writer  with  such  a  personal  style, 
that  to  add  anything  would  be  to  destroy  the 
character  he  gave  to  them.  Therefore  I  have 
left  the  "  Memoirs  "  the  fragment  —  the  har 
monious  fragment  —  they  are,  and  have  told 
the  story  of  his  life  from  the  beginning  in 
my  own  fashion  :  thus  fulfilling  the  trust  he 
confided  to  me,  without  risk  of  spoiling  that 
which  he  had  done  so  well. 

The  "Memoirs  "  are,  in  a  measure,  my  guide 
through  the  earlier  years,  but  I  have  had  the 
benefit  of  important  papers  he  did  not  have 
by  him  when  he  wrote.  After  1870,  where  the 
"Memoirs"  end,  there  is  ample  material  in 
the  letters  and  papers  that  have  come  to  me. 
Many  of  these  were  in  sad  confusion,  elo 
quent  of  constant  work  and  frequent  jour- 


EARLY   YEARS  3 

neys.  They  left  great  gaps,  with  not  a  note 
from  himself  or  a  letter  from  anybody  as  a 
clue  for  my  guidance,  until,  at  the  last  mo 
ment,  many  more  were  discovered  by  chance, 
only  just  in  time  for  me  to  re-write  chapters 
already  written  without  them.  Of  the  last 
period  of  his  life  —  from  1884  onward  —  there 
is  much,  almost  too  much.  "  I  am,  I  believe, 
the  Last  of  the  Letter  Writers,"  he  wrote 
to  me  once ;  and,  indeed,  his  letters  to  the 
correspondents  he  cared  for  were  so  long  and 
frequent  that,  of  the  number  at  my  disposal, 
I  can  use  but  a  fraction.  This  I  regret,  for  I 
think  he  was  never  so  delightful  as  when 
talking  on  paper  to  his  friends. 

I  have  also  the  "Memoranda"  he  began 
early  in  tne  Nineties,  never  yet  published. 
"  Memoranda  —  Notes,  Reminiscences,  Jot 
tings,  Ana,  Memorials,  Anecdotes,  Comments, 
etc.,"  is  the  heading  to  one  of  the  volumes,  and 
there  could  be  no  better  description.  Some 
times  he  put  down  the  events  of  the  day, 
sometimes  he  recalled  the  events  of  days  long 
past.  More  often  he  criticised  the  books  he 
was  reading,  copying  the  passages  that  struck 
him,  or  sketched  the  scheme  of  books  he  was 
writing,  even  elaborating  them  into  the  form 


4    CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

they  took  in  print.  Anything  and  everything 
— from  the  last  discovery  in  science  which  had 
inspired  him  to  the  last  kind  of  gum  or  colour 
he  was  using  in  his  decorative  work  —  went 
into  the  "Memoranda."  And  he  illustrated 
them  :  with  initial  letters  and  borders  in  pen- 
and-ink  or  brilliantly  illuminated,  with  prints 
and  curious  advertisements  out  of  the  papers, 
for  one  reason  or  another  useful  to  him.  He 
pasted  in  letters  he  wished  to  preserve.  He 
found  a  place  for  whatever  was  strange  or 
odd,  from  the  menu  of  an  unusual  dinner  to 
the  latest  broadside  issued  in  Florence.  No 
wonder  the  "  Memoranda  "  run  to  many  man 
uscript  volumes.  It  is  in  turning  over  their 
pages  that  I  have  most  despaired  of  making 
other  people  see  him  and  know  him  as  he  was. 
His  interests  were  wide  and  varied,  and  only 
a  writer  as  many-sided  could  do  full  justice  to 
all  his  intellectual  adventures.  There  were 
so  many  subjects  he  mastered  of  which  my 
knowledge  —  if  I  have  any — is  slight,  that 
I  can  only  hope  to  show  what  they  were  to 
him  and  how  he  was  influenced  by  them. 

One  other  explanation  I  ought  to  make.  If 
I  have  less  knowledge  than  my  task  demands, 
on  the  other  hand,  no  such  fault  can  be  found 


EARLY   YEARS  5 

with  the  sympathy  and  affection  I  bring  to  it. 
I  had  a  friend  in  my  uncle,  —  or  in  "  The 
Rye,"  as  I  must  be  allowed  to  call  him.  For 
it  was  the  name  by  which  I  knew  him  best, — 
not  knowing  him  really  until  he  had  become 
"  The  Rye  "  for  every  Gypsy  on  the  English 
roads  and  every  Gypsy  scholar  the  world 
over.  It  was  the  name  by  which  most  of  his 
friends  knew  him,  —  a  large  part  of  the  let 
ters  in  my  possession  begin  "  My  dear  Rye." 
Besides,  I  am  sure  he  held  very  dear  his 
own  consciousness  that  he  was  always  "  The 
Rye  "  to  so  many  people,  even  while  he  was 
busying  himself  with  matters  as  far  as  the 
poles  apart  from  the  Romany,  —  whether  re 
forms  in  education  or  problems  in  psychology. 
It  supplied  that  element  of  "  the  mysterious  " 
without  which  life  for  him  would  have  lost 
its  savour. 

I  do  not  think  many  things  in  Charles 
Godfrey  Leland's  life  gave  him  greater  sat 
isfaction  than  the  date  of  his  coming  into 
it.  For  he  was  born  on  the  i5th  of  August, 
and,  as  he  would  often  remind  me  when  sum 
mer  brought  it  round  again,  on  the  isth  the 
Blessed  Virgin  and  Buddha  ascended  into 


6    CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

heaven,  and  so,  according  to  Catholics  and 
Buddhists,  it  is  the  luckiest  birthday  in  the 
year.  It  was  like  him  to  take  hardly  less 
satisfaction  in  knowing  that  the  ceremonies 
performed  over  him,  before  he  was  many  days 
old,  were  those  of  all  others  he  would  have 
chosen  for  himself  had  choice  then  been  pos 
sible.  In  both  the  "  Memoirs  "  and  the  "  Memo 
randa  "  he  tells  how  he  was  carried  up  to  the 
garret  by  his  old  Dutch  nurse,  who  was  said 
to  be  a  sorceress,  and  left  there  with  a  Bible, 
a  key,  and  a  knife  on  his  breast,  lighted  can 
dles,  money,  and  a  plate  of  salt  at  his  head  : 
rites  that  were  to  make  luck  doubly  certain 
by  helping  him  to  rise  in  life,  and  become 
a  scholar  and  a  wizard.  Even  if  this  meant 
less  to  him  than  I  suppose,  it  has  the  value 
of  appropriateness.  It  is  what  might  be  ex 
pected,  as  a  baby,  of  the  man  who  was  called 
Master  by  witches  and  Gypsies,  whose  pock 
ets  were  always  full  of  charms  and  amulets, 
who  owned  the  Black  Stone  of  the  Voodoos, 
who  could  not  see  a  bit  of  red  string  at  his 
feet  and  not  pick  it  up,  or  find  a  pebble  with 
a  hole  in  it  and  not  add  it  to  his  store, — 
who,  in  a  word,  not  only  studied  witchcraft 
with  the  impersonal  curiosity  of  the  scholar, 


EARLY   YEARS  7 

but  practised  it  with  the  zest  of  the  initiated. 
Had  it  occurred  to  him,  he  might  have  seen  a 
sign  in  the  year —  1824  —  as  well  as  the  day 
of  his  birth.  For  it  was  at  least  one  of  the 
"strange  coincidences "  he  loved,  that  this 
should  have  happened  to  be  the  year  when 
Philadelphia,  his  native  town,  founded  both 
the  Franklin  Institute,  devoted  to  the  cause 
of  education  for  which  he  was  later  to  work, 
and  the  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society,  the 
collector,  as  he  was  to  become,  of  the  facts, 
legends,  and  relics  of  the  past.  But,  magic 
and  coincidence  apart,  nothing  counted  for 
more  in  the  influences  that  made  him  what 
he  was,  than  the  town  in  which  he  was  born, 
where  his  youth  and  childhood  were  spent. 

Philadelphia  is  still  apt  to  strike  the  stran 
ger  as  the  one  big  American  city  fortunate 
enough  never  to  be  in  a  hurry.  But  if  the 
peace  Penn  brought  with  him  has  survived, 
as  every  Philadelphian  hopes  it  always  will 
survive,  at  no  time  has  it  been  a  synonym 
for  inaction.  Throughout  Colonial  days,  Phila 
delphia  never  rested  from  its  labours ;  it  was 
stirred  to  its  depths  by  the  Revolution ;  and 
after  its  brilliant  interval  as  capital,  though  the 
quiet  that  followed  may  suggest  by  contrast  a 


8    CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

period  of  depression,  it  was  all  the  while  grow 
ing  into  the  great  manufacturing  and  artis 
tic  centre  of  to-day.  But  this  growth,  during 
the  first  half  of  the  last  century,  brought  little 
external  change.  The  town  remained  much 
as  the  Revolution  had  found  it :  everywhere 
the  Colonial  picturesqueness,  everywhere  the 
old  landmarks  with  their  associations  and  tra 
ditions  ;  everywhere,  among  the  people,  the 
old  Quaker  repose,  mistaken  by  the  ignorant 
for  somnolence.  To  the  boy  whose  life  was  in 
dreams,  there  was  inspiration  in  the  Friendly 
calm;  the  past  that  fascinated  him  was  the 
more  real  because  he  saw  it  all  about  him. 

How  deeply  the  old-fashioned  beauty  and 
tranquillity  of  the  Quaker  City  coloured  his 
thoughts  and  feelings,  as  he  wandered 
through  its  drowsy  streets  and  squares,  is 
shown  in  the  tenderness  with  which,  when 
far  away,  he  always  looked  back  to  it.  Dur 
ing  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  the  Rye  may 
not  have  lived  there.  He  found  certain  things 
that  suited  him  better  in  London,  others 
more  to  his  purpose  in  Florence.  But  his 
memories  were  ever  vivid  of  the  "  well-shaded 
peaceful  city  "  of  his  childhood,  of  its  streets 
lined  with  stately  Colonial  mansions  or  little 


EARLY   YEARS  9 

red  and  black  brick  houses,  and  the  gardens 
sweet  in  summer  with  magnolias  and  honey 
suckle  and  roses,  where  hummingbirds  and 
scarlet  tanagers  and  orioles  and  blue  and 
yellow  birds,  not  yet  banished  by  the  sparrow, 
flitted  here  and  there  among  the  flowers,  and 
swallows  darted  away  and  across  the  broad 
streets.  He  returns  to  the  description  again 
and  again  in  his  "  Memoirs :  "  "  As  it  recurs 
to  me,  the  spirit  which  was  over  Philadelphia 
in  my  boyhood,  houses,  gardens,  people,  and 
their  life,  was  strangely  quiet,  sunny,  and 
quaint,  a  dream  of  olden  time  drawn  into  mod 
ern  days.  The  Quaker  predominated,  and 
his  memories  were  mostly  in  the  past ;  ours, 
as  I  have  often  said,  was  a  city  of  great  trees, 
which  seemed  to  me  to  be  ever  repeating  their 
old  poetic  legends  to  the  wind,  of  Swedes, 
witches,  and  Indians."  And  a  little  further 
on,  "  The  characteristics  of  old  Philadelphia 
were  so  marked,  and  are,  withal,  so  sweet  in 
the  memory,  that  I  cannot  help  lingering 
on  them."  He  remembered  everything:  the 
green  shade  before  each  house ;  the  fireflies  of 
summer  nights;  the  goldfish  he  caught  in  the 
Schuylkill ;  the  whales  seen  by  old  people  of 
his  acquaintance  in  the  Delaware ;  the  Peale 


io   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Museum,  with  its  dark  galleries,  its  stuffed 
lions  and  tigers,  its  skeletons  of  still  more 
awful  beasts  and  birds,  a  place  of  delicious 
fears ;  the  flowers  and  fragrance  of  Bartram's 
garden,  loved  by  many  other  Philadelphians 
no  less  well ;  the  wild  luxuriance  of  the  valley 
of  the  Wissahickon  ;  —  all  old  Philadelphia 
is  in  these  memories.  And  he  could  not 
keep  them  out  of  his  letters  to  me  while  his 
"  Memoirs  "  were  going  through  the  press. 
From  the  Bagni  di  Lucca,  he  wrote  in  the 
summer  of  1893:  "  I  wish  I  had  thought  of 
it  —  I  would  have  made  more  of  old  Phila 
delphia.  Should  I  ever  return  there,  I  will 
put  all  my  heart  into  a  book  on  the  subject 
and  write  it  all  in  flowers,  perfumes  —  reeds 
in  the  rivers  —  quaint  old  golden  brown  even 
ings  —  the  scent  of  buckwheat  cakes  baking 
in  the  early  morning  —  magnolia  fragrance 
mingled  with  roasting  coffee  —  ghosts  of  by 
gone  Cadwaladers  and  Whartons  and  mem 
ories  of  pretty  Quaker  girls  in  the  sunset 
light  on  Arch  Street.  There  are  not  many 
living  now  who  can  do  it." 

And  he  liked  to  think  that  these  memories 
carried  him  back  to  a  time  when  elderly  men 
wore  queues  and  sat  over  their  Madeira  after 


EARLY   YEARS  11 

dinner,  —  the  Madeira  for  which  Philadelphia 
was  as  famed  as  for  its  West  India  turtles; 
when  "  fifty  thousand  dollars  entitled  a  man 
to  keep  a  carnage  and  be  classed  as  '  quality' 
by  the  negroes :  "  when  Fredrika  Bremer's 
novels  were  popular,  and  her  "  Count  Bruno  " 
apt  to  be  discovered  in  the  Swedish  count 
who  strayed  by  chance  to  Philadelphia ;  when 
young  ladies  worked  their  samplers,  warbled 
Tom  Moore's  melodies,  and  fainted  on  the 
slightest  provocation.  He  could  never  for 
get  how  a  famous  belle  who  lived  next  door 
swooned  the  first  time  N.  P.  Willis  came  to 
call  upon  her.  The  postman  still  blew  his 
horn,  the  watchman  still  called  the  hour  and 
the  weather  all  night  long.  The  song  of  the 
hominy  man  — 

"  De  hominy  man  is  on  his  way, 
Frum  de  Navy-Yard ! 
Wid  his  harmony  !  "  — 

mingled  with  the  bell  of  the  muffin  man,  the 
cries  of  "  Hot  corn  !  "  "  Pepper-Pot !  "  "  Beau 
tiful  clams!"  "  Sweep-oh  !  "  and  the  loud 
"  Tra-la-la,  la-la-la-loo ! "  of  the  darkey  with 
lemon  ice-cream  "  an'  waniila  —  too !  "  Steam 
boats  were  very  new,  —  his  father  had  been 
in  the  first  that  was  a  success  on  the  Dela- 


12   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

ware ;  he  himself  made  the  first  journey  on 
the  first  railroad  out  of  Philadelphia.  And 
people  were  still  to  be  seen,  and  met,  and 
talked  with,  who  brought  the  boy  very  close 
to  the  Revolution.  As  soon  as  he  could  un 
derstand,  he  was  told  how,  a  mere  baby,  he 
had  been  held  up  at  the  window  to  look  at 
Lafayette,  —  then  on  the  second  visit,  "  as  a 
veteran,"  to  the  "  great  and  beautiful  town  of 
Philadelphia,"  where  he  had  first  been  wel 
comed  "  as  a  recruit."  Many  friends  of  the 
boy's  father  had  known  Washington  and  Jef 
ferson;  one  could  talk  as  intimately  of  the 
heroes  of  the  French  Revolution;  and  when 
the  boy  was  old  enough  he  was  allowed  to  sit 
and  listen  to  their  stories  after  dinner.  There 
were  two  nieces  of  Benjamin  Franklin's  who 
often  dropped  in  to  tea  with  his  mother,  and 
another  lady  who  had  been  educated  in  France 
and  had  actually  seen  Napoleon.  Even  the 
porter  in  his  father's  store  —  his  father  then 
was  a  commission  merchant  —  seemed  to 
move  in  the  same  wonderful  past,  for  he  had 
spoken  to  Talleyrand -when  Talleyrand  lived 
in  Philadelphia.  Once,  too,  a  moment  never 
to  be  forgotten,  the  boy  shook  hands  with 
G.  R.  T.  Hewes,  the  last  of  the  "  Boston 


^tf         Xc  { 


FROM   OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 


EARLY   YEARS  13 

Tea-Party ;  "  once  he  saw  with  his  own  eyes 
Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  the  last  of  the 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  .Independence. 
Nor  was  it  less  strange  to  think  that  Bishop 
White,  whom  he  sometimes  met,  had  known 
and  talked  with  Dr.  Johnson  in  far  London. 
The  past  was  with  the  boy  everywhere,  in 
doors  as  well  as  out.  There  was  not  a  house 
of  the  many  into  which  his  father  moved, 
one  after  the  other,  without  its  romance.  He 
was  born  in  the  "  Dolly  Madison  house " 
on  Chestnut  Street  below  Third,  where  the 
President's  wife  had  lived  in  her  girlhood. 
He  was  hardly  more  than  a  baby  when  the 
family  went  to  Mrs.  Shinn's  in  Second  Street, 
but,  when  he  wrote  his  "  Memoirs "  almost 
seventy  years  after,  he  still  remembered  its 
garden  full  of  flowers,  and  the  parlour  fire 
place  with  the  old  Dutch  tiles  from  which 
he  learned  the  story  of  Joseph  and  his  breth 
ren  and  ^sop's  Fables.  Then  came  the  house 
in  Fifth  Street,  with  windows  looking,  almost 
directly  opposite,  to  the  Old  State  House 
and,  a  little  further,  to  the  Library,  where 
there  was  the  statue  of  Franklin  which,  as 
all  Philadelphia  knew,  came  down  from  its 
pedestal  when  it  heard  the  clock  strike  mid- 


I4   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

night,  —  it  was  Penn's  statue  in  front  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Hospital,  and  the  hour  was 
six,  for  the  children  of  my  generation.  And 
then  the  house  in  Washington  Square,  where 
he  had  the  McClellans  for  neighbours,  —  the 
youngest,  George,  figuring  in  the  "  Memo 
randa  "  as  "  a  very  jolly,  very  average  sort  of 
boy,  giving  no  promise  of  his  great  future,  or 
his  great  failure,"  —  and  where  the  windows 
commanded  the  square,  of  old  a  potter's 
field,  haunted  by  the  spirits  of  the  victims 
of  yellow  fever  buried  there.  So  each  house, 
for  the  boy,  was  a  new  link  with  the  past. 

Nor  was  the  marvellous  ever  very  far  away. 
Not  only  did  statues  walk,  but  there  were 
great  marble  dogs  in  Race  Street  by  which 
the  small  boy  who  was  wise  ran  quickly,  for 
they  howled  when  anybody  in  the  neighbour 
hood  died  ;  a  dreadful  sound,  surely,  even  for 
grown-up  people  to  hear.  Then,  there  were 
Indians  who  came  from  their  graves  to  hold 
their  weekly  market  in  Independence  Square, 
and,  had  he  only  waked  at  the  midnight  hour, 
he  might  (who  knows  ?)  have  seen,  from  the 
Fifth  Street  windows,  the  statue  of  Franklin 
stalking  among  their  shadows.  There  was 
the  Quaker  girl,  too,  whose  ghost  on  summer 


EARLY   YEARS  15 

nights  wandered  among  the  flowers  in  the 
garden  of  the  old  Pennington  House,  a  ghost 
no  one  need  have  been  afraid  of.  These  and 
other  pleasant  terrors  lurked  at  every  corner, 
in  every  open  place  of  the  town.  In  the  quiet 
parlour  at  home  he  heard  of  worse  than 
ghosts.  For  often  the  gossip  of  his  mother 
and  her  friends,  over  their  tea,  went  back  to 
the  days  before  Penn,  when  there  was  no 
Quaker  City  on  the  banks  of  the  Delaware, 
but  a  little  colony  of  Swedes,  and  the  women 
were  mostly  witches  who  would  go  flying  off 
on  broomsticks  to  join  in  the  revels  on  the 
Hudson.  No  one  knew  this  gossip  better,  or 
had  more  awful  tales  to  tell,  than  Miss  Eliza 
Leslie,  who  wrote  the  most  practical  cook 
book  ever  published,  and  one  of  the  most 
popular,  too,  as  I  have  learned  to  my  cost, 
the  first  edition  being  beyond  reach.  If  an 
authoress  of  such  strong  common-sense  could 
believe  in  these  things,  what  was  to  be  ex 
pected  of  the  small  boy  who,  tremblingly,  hung 
on  her  every  word  ?  And  when  he  invested 
in  the  Dime  Novels  of  the  day,  half  the  time 
it  was  to  read  some  horror  of  the  Salem 
witches ;  when  he  wandered  into  the  kitchen, 
Irish  servants  whispered  of  fairies,  or  old  col- 


16   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

oured  women  muttered  "  Voodoo  incanta 
tions."  One  there  was,  a  cook,  who  had  gone 
so  far  as  to  put  "  a  spell  of  death  "  on  all  who 
dared  to  take  her  place. 

But,  had  there  been  no  ghosts,  no  witches, 
no  devil-lore,  the  boy's  instinctive  love  of  the 
supernatural  and  the  mysterious  must  still 
have  been  strengthened  in  the  atmosphere  of 
Philadelphia.  The  town  had  been  founded 
by  Penn  that  he  and  his  people  might  follow 
undisturbed  the  inward  light,  and  one  truth 
this  light  had  revealed  to  them  was  the  right 
of  freedom  of  belief  even  for  those  who  did 
not  happen  to  believe  as  they  did.  Therefore, 
to  Philadelphia  and  all  Penn's  country,  seers 
and  mystics,  whose  visions  and  creeds  were 
not  tolerated  in  their  own  countries,  had  hur 
ried.  Quietism,  swept  from  Europe,  took  root 
afresh  and  flourished  there.  Dunker  monas 
teries  rose  at  Ephrata.  Moravian  colonies 
were  established  at  Nazareth  and  Bethlehem. 
Pastorius  and  his  people  went  their  contem 
plative  ways  in  near  Germantown.  In  the  for 
ests  there  were  hermits  like  the  monks  of  old 
in  the  desert.  On  the  hills  above  the  Wissa- 
hickon  men  sought  the  Woman  of  the  Wilder 
ness  while  preparing  for  the  Millennium  her 


EARLY   YEARS  17 

coming  would  announce.  Rumours  remain  of 
astrologers  and  magicians  practising  no  one 
could  say  what  mysterious  rites.  If  most  of 
these  fanatics,  to  whom  Penn  gave  shelter, 
managed  somehow  to  live  the  life  of  the  flesh 
extremely  well,  their  chief  concern  was  always 
the  life  of  the  spirit;  and  though  freedom 
proved  more  destructive  to  their  faith  than 
persecution,  even  in  the  early  part  of  the  last 
century  their  influence  had  by  no  means  .died 
away.  Certainly,  in  no  other  State  would  the 
boy  have  found  the  doors  of  mysticism  so 
wide  open,  just  as  in  few  other  cities  would 
the  past  have  been  so  ever  present. 

Not  that  he  became  morbid  in  this  atmos 
phere.  He  may  have  cared  for  some  things 
most  boys  are  indifferent  to,  —  if  he  had  not, 
he  would  never  have  grown  into  the  man  we 
know.  But  he  cared  also  for  many  of  the 
things  that  every  right-minded  boy  does  care 
for.  Philadelphia  was  small  in  those  days, 
and  outdoor  amusements,  the  best  part  of 
boyhood,  were  to  be  enjoyed  without,  as  now, 
making  an  elaborate  business  of  them.  In 
winter,  adventure  awaited  the  adventurous  lad 
who  braved  the  long  walk  across  the  frozen 
Delaware  to  Camden.  In  summer,  there  was 


i8   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

rare  sport  for  the  young  fisherman  along  the 
Schuylkill.  In  the  fall,  there  were  reed  birds 
to  shoot  in  the  marshes  below  the  town.  And 
always,  at  all  times  of  the  year,  there  were  near 
woods  to  wander  in,  —  a  beautiful  wild  coun 
try,  where  the  boy's  love  of  nature  strength 
ened  with  his  love  of  the  past  and  the  Un 
known. 

Perhaps  he  owed  the  feeling  for  Nature, 
that  played  so  large  a  part  in  his  develop 
ment,  even  more  to  the  many  summers  he 
spent  in  the  North.  Both  his  father  and 
mother,  though  living  in  Philadelphia,  were 
of  old  New  England  stock.  His  father  was 
descended  from  Henry  Leland,  one  of  the 
Puritans  who  came  to  America  in  1636  and 
settled  in  Massachusetts,  though  some  say 
Henry  had  been  preceded  by  a  still  earlier 
emigrant,  Hopestill  Leland,  whose  name  tells 
the  story  of  his  coming,  and  who  was  the  first 
white  settler  in  New  England :  as  noble  an 
cestors  these  as  the  De  Bussli  who,  if  tra 
dition  may  be  trusted,  crossed  to  England 
from  Normandy  with  the  Conqueror,  and  for 
his  services  was  given  the  manor  of  Leland, 
from  which  the  family  took  their  name.  John 
Leland,  the  antiquary,  Charles  Leland,  the 


EARLY   YEARS  19 

Secretary  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  in 
Charles  I's  time,  were  other  ancestors*  the 
Rye  delighted  to  claim. 

His  mother  was  a  Miss  Godfrey.  The 
Godfrey  family  belonged  originally  to  Rhode 
Island,  where  the  Puritan  received  an  inter 
mixture  of  French  Huguenot  blood,  by  no 
means  to  its  disadvantage,  while  one  ances 
tress,  it  pleased  the  Rye  to  remember,  mar 
ried  a  "  High  German,"  a  doctor  with  a  rep 
utation  for  sorcery,  —  "  my  mother's  opinion 
was  that  this  was  a  very  strong  case  of  ata 
vism,  and  that  the  mysterious  ancestor  had 
through  the  ages  cropped  out  in  me."  He 
was,  the  Rye  always  fancied,  Washington 
Irving's  "  High  German  doctor  "  who  laid  the 
mystic  spell  on  Sleepy  Hollow,  and  I,  for  one, 
have  no  desire  to  question  what  ought  to  have 
been,  if  it  were  not.  The  Godfreys  moved  to 
Massachusetts,  where  the  grandfather,  Colo 
nel  Godfrey,  after  fighting  in  the  War  of  the 
Revolution,  was  for  a  while  aide-de-camp  to 
the  governor,  and  where  an  aunt  and  uncle 
Godfrey  still  lived  in  Milford,  not  far  from 
Holliston,  Oliver  Leland's  farm. 

Scarcely  a  summer  passed  that  the  Phila 
delphia  family  did  not  divide  a  visit  of  several 


20   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

months  among  the  different  relatives  in 
Dedham  and  Milford,  Mendon  and  Holliston. 
The  journey  —  by  stage-coach,  nights  spent 
on  the  way  at  Princeton,  Perth- Amboy,  and 
Providence  —  was  in  itself  a  holiday.  And 
once  arrived  at  the  journey's  end,  nothing  but 
pleasure  was  in  store  for  the  boy,  in  whom  a 
taste  for  adventure  mingled  with  his  love  of 
mysticism.  All  the  Lelands  had  been  fighters 
in  their  time.  "  All  our  family,  without  a  break 
in  the  record,  have  successively  taken  turns  at 
fighting,  and  earned  our  pay  as  soldiers  since 
time  lost  in  oblivion."  Holliston  had  been 
once  a  guard-post  against  the  Indians,  "where 
all  the  men  were  soldiers,  ever  at  war."  The 
great-grandfather  had  served  in  the  French 
War,  and  had  been  kept  prisoner  an  entire 
winter  among  the  Indians,  from  whom  he  had 
learned  the  Algonkin  tongue,  as  the  great- 
grandson  was  to  learn  it  under  more  comfort 
able  conditions.  The  grandfather,  Oliver, 
"  great,  grim,  and  taciturn  to  behold,  yet  with 
a  good  heart,  and  not  devoid  of  humour,"  had 
fought  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution,  and  had 
been  at  Princeton,  and  at  Saratoga  for  Bur- 
goyne's  surrender.  Others  of  the  family  had 
figured  at  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill ;  and 


EARLY   YEARS  21 

the  grandfather's  friends  were  almost  all  vet 
erans,  as  full  of  tales  of  battles  as  himself.  In 
the  very  air  the  boy  breathed  was  the  romance 
of  war.  And  the  stories  of  the  great-grand 
father  among  the  Algonkins  were  all  the  more 
real  to  him,  because  on  his  uncle  Seth  Daveii- 
port's  large,  old-fashioned  farm  at  Mendon 
near  by  there  were  Indians  among  the  labour 
ers, —  one,  Rufus  Pease,  he  could  recall  in 
his  "  Memoirs  "  as  "  a  very  dark,  ruddy  gypsy 
with  a  pleasant  smile."  Probably  this  was 
the  beginning  of  the  friendship  with  the  In 
dians  that  led  in  the  end  to  his  initiation  into 
the  tribe  of  the  wild  Kaws  of  the  Western 
plains,  and  his  close  alliance  with  the  peace 
ful  Passamaquoddies  weaving  their  baskets 
in  the  pine  woods  of  Bar  Harbor  and  Campo- 
bello. 

Of  the  home  life  on  the  New  England 
farms,  also,  he  retained  many  happy  memo 
ries, —  memories  of  simple  old  homesteads 
"  delightfully  comfortable,  old-fashioned,  and 
in  a  way  beautiful; "  of  halls  hung  with  family 
portraits  in  antique  dress ;  of  cool  dairies  and 
large  gardens ;  of  quiet  summer  evenings  in 
the  parlour  with  his  cousins  at  the  piano ;  of 
visits  to  neighbours  with  his  mother ;  of  old 


22   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

sporting  uncles  who  took  "  Bell's  Life,"  of 
other  uncles  who  wore  scarlet  waistcoats,  or 
who  seemed  altogether  to  belong  to  the  time 
of  Cromwell ;  of  cousins  so  gentle  that  the 
wild  birds  came  to  feed  from  their  hands,  — 
memories  that  ever  had  to  him  "  something 
of  the  chiaroscuro  and  Rembrandt  colour  and 
charm  of  the  *  Mahrchen  '  or  fairy  tale." 

But  best  of  all  were  the  days  when  he 
wandered  by  himself,  fishing,  strolling  in  the 
beautiful  wild  places  among  rocks  and  fields, 
or  in  the  forests  by  the  river  Charles.  "  I  was 
always  given,"  he  says  in  the  "  Memoirs," 
"  to  loneliness  in  gardens  and  woods  when  I 
could  get  into  them,  and  to  hearing  words 
in  birds'  songs  and  running  or  falling  water." 
He,  anyway,  would  have  understood  Miss 
Peabody,  destined  to  become  more  famous  as 
Mrs.  Hawthorne,  when,  about  the  same  time, 
she  described  Dedham  as  "  holy  country," 
where  one  could  be  "  alone  with  the  trees  and 
birds."  It  was  this  loneliness  that  made  the 
long  summers  on  the  New  England  farms 
so  dear  to  him,  not  only  in  his  boyhood  but 
forever  after.  "  During  more  than  one  third 
of  a  life  which  began  in  1824,"  he  wrote  in 
his  Preface  to  "  Kuldskap,"  his  last  book,  "  I 


EARLY   YEARS  23 

have  passed  almost  annually  over  the  conti 
nent  of  Europe.  I  have  lived  for  the  past 
fifteen  years  in  Florence,  in  touch  with  the 
Apennines,  or  opposite  Bellosguardov  sung  by 
many  a  poet,  and  the  Alps  and  castled  crags 
of  the  Rhine  come  to  me  often  in  my  dreams ; 
yet  I  never  found  in  it  all  that  strange  and 
sweet  charm  like  a  song  without  words  which 
haunts  the  hills  and  valleys  of  rural  New 
England."  Throughout  the  "  Memoranda," 
it  seems  as  if  he  were  trying  to  analyse  and 
define  this  charm  in  order  to  understand  it 
the  better  himself,  so  full  are  they  of  descrip 
tions  of  the  land  that  for  him  lay  under  "  the 
mystic  spell  of  Sleepy  Hollow,"  so  full  of 
legends  of  elves  and  spirits  and  the  strange 
things  that,  in  his  fancy,  ever  haunted  it.  For 
it  was  the  unseen  that  drew  him  to  Nature, 
just  as  it  was  the  extraordinary  that  fascinated 
him  in  every-day  life.  It  is  characteristic  that 
in  the  midst  of  these  stories  he  should  break 
off,  of  a  sudden  as  it  appears  to  the  reader, 
but  as  though  to  him  there  were  no  abrupt 
transition,  to  tell  of  his  own  strange  experience 
in  the  full  daylight  of  his  uncle's  store.  Wher 
ever  he  went,  he  could  not  get  away,  did  not 
want  to  get  away,  from  the  supernatural. 


24   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

"  Once,  when  seated,  studying  an  Italian 
grammar  on  a  box,  an  iron  counterpoise,  long 
and  narrow,  weighing  nearly  fifty  pounds,  fell 
from  the  highest  loft,  touching  my  hair  as 
it  fell  —  shattered  the  box  on  which  I  sat, 
and  rebounding  thirty  feet  broke  through  the 
plaster  of  the  wall.  I  escaped  death  by  half 
an  inch.  .  .  .  Close  escape  from  death,  you 
say.  Yet  if  we  knew  all  the  secrets  of  our 
mechanism,  of  physiology,  of  what  goes  on 
unseen  around  us  —  it  may  be  that  we  make 
as  narrow  escapes  daily."  The  unseen,  the 
strange,  the  extraordinary,  —  that  was  what 
reconciled  him  to  life,  from  boyhood  when 
this  incident  occurred,  to  old  age  when  the 
lines  recording  it  were  written. 

It  was  thus,  whether  in  Philadelphia,  or 
in  New  England,  the  boy  grew  up:  living 
much  in  the  past  and  with  Nature,  ever  con 
scious  of  supernatural  influences,  seeking 
the  strange  by  preference,  and  from  the  mo 
ment  he  could  read  at  all,  —  he  learned  his 
letters  in  the  melancholy  little  New  England 
Primer  that  would  not  let  the  youngest  for 
get  how 

"  In  Adam's  fall 
Wesin-nMall,"  — 


EARLY   YEARS  25 

reading  every  book  that  fell  in  his  way.  Of 
the  usual  schooling  he  received  his  fair  share. 
In  after  life  he  remembered  the  schools  to 
which  he  went  as  clearly  as  the  houses  in 
which  he  lived :  the  first,  the  Misses  Donald 
son's,  on  Walnut  Street  above  Eighth,  where 
the  elder  Miss  Donaldson,  with  a  long  rod  in 
her  hand,  sitting  "prim  and  perpendicular" 
at  her  desk,  left  an  awful  impression  not  to 
be  effaced  by  time ;  and  the  many  that  suc 
ceeded,  some  kept  by  Friends  of  gentle  ways 
and  soothing  "  thee  "  and  "  thou,"  some  by 
"coarse  brutal  fiends,"  in  whose  class-rooms, 
from  morning  till  night,  boys  were  heard 
screaming  under  the  rattan  ("coarse  brutal 
fiends,"  alas  !  were  then  the  rule,  most  little 
American  boys  being  well  flogged  into  learn 
ing),  until  at  last  Princeton  was  reached. 
All  these  schools  were  in  Philadelphia,  ex 
cept  one  at  Jamaica  Plain,  directed  by  a 
Mr.  Greene,  "  an  old-fashioned  gentlemanly 
person,"  whose  "academy"  was  patronized 
by  New  England  boys.  Motley  had  been  a 
pupil,  and  the  Rye  had  for  schoolmates,  be 
sides  his  brother  Henry,  G.  W.  Curtis  and 
Frank  Goodrich,  son  of  "  Peter  Parley,"  the 
"  S.  G.  G."  of  whom  Hawthorne  wrote,  "  a  gen- 


26   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

tleman  of  many  excellent  qualities,  although 
a  publisher." 

The  one  letter  surviving  from  his  school 
days  is  dated  "Jamaica  Plain,  Oct.  22nd 
1835."  He  was  only  in  his  twelfth  year,  but 
what  was  to  be  his  lifelong  study  of  lan 
guages  and  drawing  had  begun.  As  the  first 
record  of  the  dawning  in  him  of  a  preference, 
or  a  passion,  from  which  much  was  to  come, 
or  as  the  first  record  from  him  of  any  kind, 
these  few  lines,  in  big,  round,  schoolboy  writ 
ing,  deserve  a  place. 

CHARLES   GODFREY    LELAND   TO   MRS.    CHARLES    LELAND 

DEAR  MOTHER,  —  Since  I  was  at  Dedham 
last,  I  have  begun  to  study  French,  Latin, 
and  drawing,  and  will  next  begin  Spanish. 
My  French  is  very  easy.  It  is  the  same  that 
I  used  to  study  at  Mrs.  Dorr's  school.  I  wish 
that  when  you  go  to  Philadelphia  you  would 
send  me  all  my  French  books.  We  have  the 
scarlet  fever  very  bad  here,  three  children 
have  died  of  it  in  the  village,  and  it  is  in  six 
houses.  I  remain  your  affectionate  son, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 

To  this  was  added   by  some  one,  most 


EARLY   YEARS  27 

likely  by  Mr.  Greene,  his  long  experience  hav 
ing  taught  him  to  understand  mothers  and 
their  fears,  "All  well  in  the  house.  None  of 
the  day  scholars  sick." 

One  other  glimpse  of  his  school-life  there 
remains  in  a  letter  from  his  father,  dated  in 
the  November  of  the  following  year ;  a  plea 
sant  glimpse,  for  the  father  tells  him,  "  I  will 
try  to  be  with  you  in  time  to  go  to  Holliston 
for  the  Thanksgiving  Supper  we  promised  to 
take  with  Grandfather."  The  importance  of 
that  we,  any  schoolboy  would  appreciate. 

The  happiness  of  school-days  has  passed 
into  a  proverb,  but  it  is  only  for  the  children 
of  rude  health  and  average  mind.  The  Rye, 
as  a  child  and  youth,  was  delicate,  —  growing 
too  fast  into  the  man  of  great  height  and 
huge  frame  that  Philadelphia  will  not  soon 
forget.  "  A  tall  and  yet  weak  boy  is  the  ame 
damnee  of  any  school,  and  the  best  of  boys 
are  inhuman,"  is  his  comment  in  writing  of 
his  school-days,  and  in  the  "  Memoranda " 
he  recalls  how,  "  between  the  doctor  and  my 
schoolmates,  I  wished  myself  dead  a  thou 
sand  times  in  a  week."  Moreover,  he  had  any 
thing  but  an  average  mind.  Many  things  he 
knew  and  understood  beyond  his  years :  but 


28   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

the  things  for  which  good  boys  at  school  got 
good  marks  he  did  not  know,  and,  what  was 
worse,  could  not  learn.  To  the  master,  whose 
business  was  to  drill  the  multiplication  table 
into  his  head,  "twice  two"  recited  correctly 
was  worth  all  the  old  English  ballads  in  the 
world.  But  "  twice  two  "  was  just  what  the 
boy,  who  had  most  of  English  literature  at 
his  fingers'  ends,  could  not  grasp.  "  I  could 
never  learn  the  multiplication  table.  There 
are  things  which  the  mind,  like  the  stomach, 
rejects  without  the  least  perceptible  cause  or 


reason." 


The  things  his  mind  digested  with  phe 
nomenal  ease  helped  him  in  some  classes, 
were  terribly  against  him  in  others,  and  he 
paid  bitterly  for  what  his  masters  considered 
his  stupidity.  They  were  not  all  cruel  like 
Eastburn,  who  was  the  "  coarse  brutal  fiend," 
and  Hurlbut,  whose  school  was  known  as 
"  Hurlbut's  Purgatory ;  "  of  the  Friends  among 
them  he  spoke  only  with  praise  for  their  kind 
ness.  Walker,  too,  was  "  a  good  kind  man." 
But  kindness  is  not  always  sympathy,  and 
sympathy,  or  its  substitute,  was  given  him 
only  by  Hunt  and  by  Bronson  Alcott.  Hunt, 
afterwards  editor  of  "  Littell's,"  long  the  Amer- 


EARLY   YEARS  29 

ican  short  cut  to  contemporary  literature,  was, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  "an  extensive, 
desultory  reader :  "  a  schoolmaster  who  forced 
his  pupils  to  think,  who  explained  Alduses 
and  Elzevirs  to  at  least  one  of  their  number 
and  introduced  him  to  Cornelius  Agrippa,  a 
strange  acquaintance  to  make  in  a  Philadel 
phia  school  three  quarters  of  a  century  ago. 
Alcott  the  mystic,  the  transcendentalist,  was 
"  the  most  eccentric  man  who  ever  took  it  on 
himself  to  train  and  form  the  youthful  mind." 
He  believed  in  teaching  by  u  moral  influence  " 
and  "sympathetic  intellectual  communion," 
and  by  talking —  "  and  oh,  heaven  !  what  a 
talker  he  was !  "  The  child,  nine  at  the  time, 
loved  the  talk,  but  lived  to  question  its  excel 
lence  as  an  educational  method.  "  He  was 
the  worst  or  best  teacher  I  ever  had "  —  I 
quote  from  the  "  Memoirs."  "  He  encouraged 
me  to  read  everything  and  to  learn  almost 
nothing.  .  .  .  Such  a  training  as  his  would 
develop  in  any  boy  certain  weaknesses  — 
and  I  had  mine  —  which  were  very  repulsive 
to  my  father,  who  carried  plain  common-sense 
to  extremes  and  sometimes  into  its  opposite 
of  unconscious  eccentricity,  though  there  was 
no  word  which  he  so  much  hated." 


3o   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Children  at  school  are  never  at  ease  with 
a  companion  whose  love  of  books  is  greater 
than  their  own.  The  boy  was  nearly  as  alone 
among  his  schoolmates  as  among  his  school 
masters.  Friends  he  had  —  my  own  father, 
Charles  Macalester,  and  many  others  whose 
names  are  cherished  in  Philadelphia.  There 
were  also  certain  little  Swedish  and  Span 
ish  boys  to  be  cultivated,  for  the  sake  of  the 
strange  tongues  they  spoke,  the  strange  songs 
they  sang,  the  guitars  they  could  play.  And 
then  there  was  the  one  friend  nearer  and 
dearer  than  all,  George  Boker,  whose  father 
was  his  father's  partner,  who  shared  the  same 
tastes,  who  was  his  comrade  out  of  school  as 
in  it.  "  George  Boker  owned  and  lent  me 
'  Don  Quixote,' "  I  read  in  the  "  Memoranda;" 
"  between  that  and  Scott,  we  became  very 
chivalric,  romantic,  and  used  to  pass  hours 
in  improvising  to  one  another  adventures  of 
knights,  which  were  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  those  of  Palamon  of  England  and  Ar 
thur  of  Little  Britain."  But  it  was  inevitable, 
in  his  misery  over  the  lessons  his  friends 
seemed  to  take  to  as  naturally  as  ducks  to 
water,  that  he  should  fall  back  more  and 
more  upon  himself.  In  other  schools,  or  in 


EARLY   YEARS  31 

the  Philadelphia  schools  of  the  present,  the 
whole  manner  of  his  intellectual  development 
might  have  been  different. 

As  it  was,  lessons  were  a  tedious  duty  to 
be  got  through  somehow ;  the  only  learning 
of  use  to  him,  because  pleasure  was  to  be  had 
in  it,  came  from  books,  and  to  books  he 
turned  with  an  ever-increasing  passion.  He 
did  not  read  like  a  youthful  prig  parading  his 
precocity:  he  read  because  it  amused  him  to 
read,  because,  like  Charles  Lamb,  he  loved 
every  book  that  really  was  a  book  —  though 
he  loved  it  all  the  more  if  it  dealt  with  "  the 
mysterious."  Luckily  for  him,  his  most  impres 
sionable  years  belong  to  a  period  when  young 
people  were  not  yet  supplied  to  any  great 
extent  with  a  literature  of  their  own,  and,  if 
instinctively  they  cared  for  reading,  had  to 
read  what  their  elders  read  or  what  chance 
threw  in  their  way.  Chance,  in  charge  of  the 
reading  of  this  one  young  person  in  particu 
lar,  directed  it  into  the  most  varied  channels. 
One  day  he  was  deep  in  Shakespeare  and 
"Percy's  Reliques,"  the  next  in  "Jack  the 
Giant-Killer  "  and  "  Hop-o'-my-Thumb."  He 
divided  his  pocket  money  between  comic 
almanacs  and  black  letter  folios.  He  read 


32   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

the  Bible  everywhere,  and  reserved  Cellini 
for  church.  He  revelled  in  "  Gil  Bias  "  and 
the  "  Arabian  Nights  "  and  Irving,  whom  he 
adored,  and  Chaucer  and  Sterne  and  Swift ; 
but  he  also  knew  by  heart  the  little  cheap 
books  to  be  had  for  a  penny,  —  and  what 
would  not  the  collector  give  for  the  copies 
of  "  Marmaduke  Multiply,"  "  Chrononho- 
tonthologos,"  "  The  World  turned  Upside 
Down,"  for  all  Mr.  Newberry's  gilt-cover  toy- 
books  that  he  probably  thumbed  out  of  exist 
ence? 

There  were  books  in  his  own  home ;  his 
mother  had  been  "from  her  earliest  years 
devoted  to  literature  to  a  degree  which  was 
unusual  at  that  time  in  the  United  States," — 
among  those  old  papers,  ghosts  from  out  the 
past,  I  have  seen  a  copy  of  verses  by  her,  writ 
ten  in  a  letter,  gay,  graceful,  and  touched 
with  a  humour  that  accounts  for  much  in  the 
author  of  "  Breitmann."  There  were  friends 
with  more  books  to  lend.  When  he  was  four 
teen,  his  father  gave  him  a  share  in  the 
Philadelphia  Library.  It  is  hard  to  say  which, 
nowadays,  would  be  the  more  unexpected  in 
a  schoolboy,  the  quantity  or  the  quality  of  his 
reading.  He  was  still  a  child  when  he  man- 


EARLY   YEARS  33 

aged  to  dip  into  Rabelais,  who  was  to  him  "as 
the  light  which  flashed  upon  Saul  journeying 
to  Damascus."  At  fifteen,  he  was  studying 
Proven9al,  getting  the  old  French  poets  by 
heart,  translating  Villon.  At  sixteen,  he  was 
busy  with  a  poetic  version  of  the  Death  Song 
of  Regner  Lodbrog.  But  "occult  literature 
had  the  upper  hand,"  and  from  his  eighteenth 
year  there  has  come  down  to  me  a  little  old 
manuscript  copy  of  the  "  Pemander  of  Tris- 
megistus:"  "Transcribed  by  Charles  Leland, 
1842"  on  the  title-page.  Then  he  plunged 
into  Transcendentalism,  of  which  reports  had 
reached  Philadelphia  from  Boston,  and  sub 
stantial  information  had  been  brought  to  him 
straight  from  headquarters  by  his  mother,  who 
had  visited  Brook  Farm.  He  was  prepared, 
in  a  way,  having  had  his  first  metaphysical 
experience,  his  first  consciousness  of  the  Ego 
—  "I  am  I :  I  am  myself :  I  myself  I  " 
already  as  a  mere  child  at  one  of  the  old 
Friends'  schools.  The  "  Orphic  Alcott "  had 
helped  him  still  further.  And  now  Channing 
and  Furness  were  preaching  in  Philadelphia 
(one  occasionally,  the  other  regularly),  and 
they  and  their  sermons  —  which  kept  him 
faithful  to  the  Unitarian  creed  after  his  par- 


34   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

ents  had  abandoned  it  for  Episcopalianism 
—  were  his  guides  through  the  transcendental 
maze.  So  also  were  the  books  of  Carlyle,  upon 
which  he  first  chanced  somewhere  between 
1838  and  1840,  and  the  study  they  introduced 
him  to  of  Spinoza  and  Schelling,  Kant  and 
Fichte. 

It  was  the  reading  upon  which  most  think 
ers  of  his  generation  were  reared,  but  not  the 
reading  by  which  students  were  trained  for 
Princeton,  his  college.  Worse,  it  carried  him 
far  from  the  practical  world  in  which  his 
father  wanted  to  see  him  shine.  And  worst 
of  all,  it  made  him  appear  "  peculiar,"  "  eccen 
tric,"  in  the  Philadelphia  of  the  thirties  and 
forties.  It  was  a  good  thing  for  his  mental 
balance,  that  the  extraordinary  in  life  kindled 
in  him  no  less  enthusiasm  than  the  extraor 
dinary  in  thought,  and  that  he  could  find  it 
even  in  every-day  occupations.  Out  in  the 
open  air,  on  horseback,  he  could  move  through 
mystery  as  naturally  as  at  his  desk  with  the 
"  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  "  open  before  him. 
If  there  was  magic  in  the  theory  of  the  phi 
losopher,  so  there  might  be  in  the  unaccount 
able  intelligence  and  actions  of  mere  animals, 
and  his  list  of  the  books  he  read. does  not 


EARLY   YEARS  35 

reveal  more  of  the  youth,  than  his  account  of 
his  long  rides  on  the  horse  that  "  was  a  per 
fect  devil,  but  also  a  perfect  gentleman,"  and 
of  the  understanding  between  horse  and  rider. 
Had  there  been  a  Gypsy  to  watch  those 
rides,  he  would  have  recognised  in  the  rider 
a  Master,  even  as  the  Romany,  in  the  green 
lanes  of  England,  bowed  before  Borrow,  the 
Sapengro. 

That  the  Rye,  as  a  boy,  was  not  always 
deep  in  metaphysics,  that  he  was  not  always 
in  pursuit  of  adventure,  but  could  take  a 
healthy,  boyish  interest  in  everything  about 
him,  there  is  curious  evidence  in  a  little  old 
journal,  his  "  Notes  of  an  excursion  to  Ston- 
ington,  Conn.,"  in  July,  1840,  —  towards  the 
end,  that  is,  of  his  schooldays.  It  shows  him 
using  his  eyes  to  such  good  purpose  that 
many  of  the  "  notes  "  have  their  value  as  a 
record  of  manners  and  customs  some  sixty 
or  seventy  years  ago.  For  he  was  a  young 
observer  and  had  a  talent  for  comparisons. 
He  could  see  that  the  cars  on  the  New  Jer 
sey,  Camden,  and  Bordentown  Railroad  were 
"  very  poorly  built,"  and  the  road  "  kept  in 
bad  repair,  being  inferior  to  either  the  Boston 
and  Providence  or  Columbia."  He  could  see 


36   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

that  the  "  ten  or  fifteen  recruits  for  the  U.  S. 
military  service  bound  for  Florida,  who  came 
on  with  us  in  the  same  line  of  cars,  were 
miserable  looking  fellows  who  seemed  to  have 
been  driven  to  the  army  by  being  excluded 
from  every  other  honourable  employment  or 
profession.  They  had  a  fight  coming  over 
—  the  face  of  one  was  cut  in  a  terrible  man 
ner."  The  first  thing  that  reminded  him  he 
"was  quitting  Philadelphia  for  New  York, 
was  the  use  of  the  words  shilling  and  sixpence 
for  levy  andy^,"  and  "  the  men  wearing  white 
frocks  over  their  clothes,  who  came  on 
board  and  endeavoured  to  obtain  from  each 
passenger  the  job  of  carrying  his  luggage 
for  him.  They  were  much  more  respectable 
looking  men  than  our  draymen,  from  the 
circumstance  that  they  appeared  mostly  to 
be  *  Americans '  and  not  Irish.  ...  I  would 
observe  that  the  drays  in  N.  York  are  not 
as  large  as  ours  in  Philadelphia  nor  as  well 
suited  to  carry  heavy  burdens? 

Arrived  in  New  York,  "  I  walked  into  the 
city  with  Henry  and  Father  to  look  around 
a  little  and  hear  the  news.  .  .  .  We  walked  up 
Pearl  Street.  I  saw  on  the  signs  names  which 
I  had  before  heard  of,  either  in  the  news- 


EARLY   YEARS  37 

papers  or  by  report,  —  such,  for  instance,  as 
John  Haggerty,  the  man  so  much  hated 
by  the  '  Herald,'  Arthur  Tappan,  the  well- 
known  Abolitionist,  who  may  be  said  to  be 
at  the  head  of  that  body  of  fanatics  who,  if 
they  were  able,  would  willingly  subvert  the 
constitution  and  the  laws  both  of  nature  and 
their  country  [a  view  he  was  quickly  to  out 
grow].  I  noticed  also  the  office  of  J.  Syl 
vester,  who  has  become  famous  or  infamous, 
as  you  will  have  it,  by  his  extensive  lottery 
operation,  and  also  the  offices  of  the  editors 
Major  Nock  and  Colonel  Webb.  .  .  .  We  went 
up  as  far  as  the  Astor  House,  which  has  been 
built  since  I  was  last  in  New  York."  He  saw 
too  the  Custom  House,  not  then  finished  but 
now  superseded,  and  stores  which  struck  his 
Philadelphia  eyes  as  "  much  superior  "  to  any 
at  home.  He  found  it  a  "certainly  beauti 
ful  sight "  to  sail  past  New  York,  "  with  the 
spires  of  the  numerous  churches  standing 
above  the  roofs  of  the  houses  below,  as  giants 
among  men"  —  the  spires  which  have  dwin 
dled  into  men,  or  pigmies,  among  the  giants. 
Next  follows  the  journey  by  boat,  the  chief 
things  here  to  be  "noted"  being  first,  the 
"  string  of  prisoners,  black  and  white,  going 


38   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

from  their  day  labour  to  the  prison  "  on  Black- 
well's  Island,  but  not  looking  as  miserable 
as  if  "  under  lock  and  key  in  a  close  cell, 
although  a  guard  with  a  gun  was  escorting 
them;"  and  then  the  amusements  of  the 
passengers,  who, darkness  coming  on,  "betook 
themselves,  some  to  Juleps,  some  to  bed." 

At  Stonington  he  had  his  own  amusements 
to  observe,  and  they  were  characteristic.  He 
was  already  getting  pleasure  out  of  the  Indian 
names  of  places,  and  these  were  supplied  even 
by  the  hotels.  He  was  provided  besides  with 
the  books  he  never  weaned  of:  "  Mr.  W. — 
or,  to  give  his  full  name,  Mr.  Woodbridge 
—  mentioned  to  me  that  he  had  many  old 
books  and  papers  in  his  garret.  I  obtained 
leave  to  search  them  over  and  found  many 
curious  papers,  etc.,  among  which  were  an 
original  letter  of  Roger  Shermin  in  his  own 
handwriting,  an  original  letter  of  Gov. 
Hutchinson,  so  well  known  in  Mass,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  revolution,  and  an  old  edi 
tion  of  a  sermon  of  Dr.  Increase  Mather 
dated  1683."  More  to  the  point  for  a  school 
boy  in  the  month  of  July,  ha  "  found  Ston 
ington  a  very  interesting  place  for  fishing 
and  boating.  .  .  .  Captain  Palmer  who  dis- 


EARLY  YEARS  39 

covered  the  well-known  Palmers  land  had, 
while  I  was  here,  an  excellent  boat  in  which 
I  was  when  it  raced  against  Capt.  Vander- 
bilt's,  who  was  the  quondam  captain  of  the 
Lexington ; "  in  which,  too,  there  was  a  suc 
cessful  picnic  one  day  to  Watch-hill :  "  We 
had  a  fine  trip  in  about  half  an  hour,  which 
was  fast  considering  that  we  had  about  twenty 
ladies  on  board.  We  reached  Watch-hill, 
bathed  in  the  surf,  dined  on  blackfish  and 
lobster,  and  returned  to  Stonington,  having 
enjoyed  ourselves  very  much."  He  recalled, 
in  passing,  a  short  outing  to  Providence  which 
"  served  to  convince  "  him  of  that  city's  "  mean 
ness  ; "  he  collected  much  information  as  to 
boats  and  fish,  more  especially  "  a  remarkable 
puff-fish,  about  six  inches  long,  with  large 
green  eyes  and  large  teeth  and  head,  covered 
with  short  prickles  and  swelling  into  a  per 
fect  sphere  when  tickled." 

The  "  notes  "  end  with  the  return  to  Phila 
delphia  on  August  6,  after  "  a  tolerably  pleas 
ant  trip."  Altogether,  the  little  journal,  had 
he  never  written  his  "  Memoirs,"  would  give 
a  very  fair  idea  of  the  kind  of  boy  he  was, 
both  in  his  lighter  and  his  more  serious  moods 
and  moments. 


CHAPTER  II 

PRINCETON 

AT  the  age  of  seventeen  (1841),  the  young 
Leland  went  to  Princeton,  where  many  Phila- 
delphians  studied,  the  University  of  Penn 
sylvania  then  hardly  holding  out  to  students 
the  inducements  it  now  offers.  George  Boker 
was  already  there,  at  the  end  of  his  Sopho 
more  year,  a  youth  of  some  importance  who 
could  introduce  the  timid  Freshman  to  col 
lege  life  and  college  ways.  But  beyond  this 
advantage,  the  Freshman  found  little  at 
Princeton  to  make  up  for  its  drawbacks. 

As  his  Mala  Mater  it  is  described  in  the 
"  Memoranda."  It  was,  the  "  Memoirs  "  say, 
"  in  the  hands  of  the  strictest  of  Old  School 
Presbyterian  theologians.  .  .  .  Piety  and 
mathematics  rated  extravagantly  high  in  the 
course.  .  .  .  The  college  was  simply  a  math 
ematical  school  run  on  Old  School  Presbyte 
rian  principles,  and  to  all  my  teachers  save 
Professor  Dodd,  and  to  my  fellow  students,  my 
reading  was  rubbish  and  my  philosophy  athe- 


PRINCETON  41 

ism,  while  as  I  utterly  neglected  mathematics, 
I  was  regarded  as  being  deficient  in  what 
chiefly  constitutes  intellect."  At  college,  con 
sequently,  the  experience  of  his  school  days 
was  repeated,  though  he  never  posed  as  the 
Great  Misunderstood.  He  worked  with  his 
fellow  students,  played  as  hard  as  Princeton 
allowed,  smoked  harder,  wrote  for  the  college 
journal,  "  The  Nassau  Monthly,"  even  joined 
in  a  rebellion  against  what  was  thought  an 
infringement  of  the  students'  rights,  and  was 
rusticated  for  his  trouble.  The  letter  to  his 
father,  containing  an  account  of  the  affair,  is 
interesting  for  the  glimpse  it  gives  both  of 
the  old  Princeton  and  of  his  relations  to  his 
fellow  students  —  their  neglect  of  him  and 
his  sense,  notwithstanding,  of  loyalty  to  his 
class. 

CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO  CHARLES  LELAND 

Aug.  17,  1842. 

DEAR  FATHER, —  It  becomes  my  painful 
duty  to  inform  you  that  our  class  is  all  dis 
missed  to  a  man.  Allow  me  to  begin  and  give 
the  whole  history.  The  day  before  yesterday  a 
paper  was  circulated  in  college  in  which  every 
student  engaged  to  be  absent  from  recitation 


42   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

the  next  day,  and  every  student  in  the  Fresh 
man  class  except  myself  signed  it  —  they  had 
not  thought  of  asking  me.  The  next  morn 
ing,  Craven  came  into  my  room  and  told  me 
that  the  College  was  out  in  rebellion  and 
that  the  Freshman  class  would  not  attend 
recitation.  When  n  o'clock  came  on  the 
students  gathered  on  the  Campus  and  de 
clared  that  they  would  not  go.  But,  observ 
ing  that  some  of  them  wavered,  I  exerted 
myself  and  persuaded  them  not  to  hold  out, 
and  was  either  the  first  or  second  to  enter. 
But  in  the  afternoon  I  went  unprepared  and, 
to  tell  the  truth,  more  dead  than  alive,  I  was 
so  excited  and  unwell.  All  the  others  were 
unprepared  and  said  so,  and  we  were  all  sum 
moned  to-day  before  the  Faculty  and  dismissed 
—  there  was  a  great  disposition  evident  to 
excuse  me  as  I  had  not  agreed  with  the  others 
to  stump  at  recitation.  But  I  told  them  that 
I  should  not  have  dared  to  refuse  when  the 
class  had  refused.  So  they  told  me  that  they 
admired  the  honesty  of  my  confession,  but 
although  I  had  not  entered  into  any  conspir 
acy,  yet  that  it  was  as  bad,  and  that  I  must 
go  to  Philadelphia  to-day  or  to-morrow.  Let 
me  say  that,  although  I  disapproved  of  the 


PRINCETON  43 

conduct  of  the  class  from  the  beginning,  yet 
I  was  obliged  to  go  with  them,  for  it  is  a  dread 
ful  thing  to  have  the  students  incensed  against 
one.  There  was  one  only  of  our  class  who  told 
the  Faculty  a  lie  to  get  off  —  he  said  that 
he  had  been  asleep  all  the  afternoon  and  had 
come  unprepared,  thereby  he  was  excused, 
but  he  had  agreed  with  the  rest  of  the  class 
not  only  not  to  recite  but  to  stay  away  from 
recitation  that  afternoon.  All  the  college, 
Juniors,  Sophomores  and  all,  have  been  at 
him  this  morning,  swearing  at  and  shaming 
him.  He  is  half  crazy  with  terror  and  has 
been  crying.  He  intends  to  go  before  the 
Faculty  and  recall  his  old  excuse  and  be  dis 
missed  with  the  rest.  The  Faculty  have  told 
us  to  leave  town  because  the  other  classes 
would  certainly  rebel  if  we  were  in  town,  for 
they  want  us  back.  Dr.  Carnahan  told  us 
that  we  had  done  nothing  morally  [wrong  ?] 
o'r  shameful,  but  that  they  had  special  in 
structions  from  the  trustees  to  keep  order.  I 
believe  that  in  their  own  hearts  they  approve 
of  what  we  have  done.  My  conscience  does 
not  reprove  me  and  I  feel  glad  that  I  per 
suaded  the  class  to  recite,  and  although  I 
was  fearful  of  being  put  to  shame  among  the 


44   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

students,  I  find  that  I  have  been  regarded 
quite  the  other  way.  We  shall  not  be  sent 
away  entirely,  for  they  will  no  doubt  send  for 
us  or  recall  us  in  a  week  or  two  —  their  col 
lege  is  now  in  debt  and  they  will  not  be  able 
to  spare  us.  It  is  a  pity,  for  I  was  getting 
along  so  well  in  my  studies.  I  had  forgot  to 
state  that  the  rebellion  was  all  about  our 
Senior  graduation  day.  I  do  not  think  that 
you  will  blame  my  conduct.  The  Faculty 
seemed  disposed  to  excuse  me  as  I  had  not 
signed  any  paper  or  entered  into  any  agree 
ment  not  to  recite,  but  as  I  admitted  that  I 
had  been  influenced  by  a  fear  of  the  class, 
I  was  dismissed.  Write  and  tell  me  what  to 
do.  I  have  serious  thoughts  of  studying  to 
enter  the  next  Junior  class.  Craven  told  me 
that  I  could  do  it.  Do  not  blame  me,  give 
my  love  to  Mother,  sisters,  and  all.  Henry  is 
well.  Give  my  love  to  all. 

Your  affectionate  son, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 
I  have  been  to  see  Professor  Dodd  and  he 
tells  me  that  we  are  not  actually  dismissed  but 
sent  home^  and  says  that  if  we  do  not  rebel 
any  more  we  shall  come  back  to  College  in  a 
week  or  two. 


PRINCETON  45 

P.  S.  I  had  been  elected  Valedictorium  f or 
the  next  Freshman  commencement.  This  is 
the  highest  honour  in  College  to  which  I  am 
eligible.  I  was  elected  by  the  whole  class, 
which  consisted  of  members  of  both  soci 
eties. 

In  two  other  of  his  college  letters  I  find 
amusing  proofs  that,  notwithstanding  "  Old 
School  Presbyterian  principles,"  the  students 
of  Princeton  were  much  like  all  students 
everywhere,  as  ready  for  a  free  fight  and  for 
a  frank  expression  of  opinion  as  for  rebel 
lion,  when  they  felt  the  occasion  demanded 
it.  One  is  dated  July,  1842,  only  a  month 
before  the  Freshman  rebellion,  so  that  the 
summer  of  that  year  at  Princeton  must  have 
been  a  particularly  lively  one  for  professors 
and  students  both.  I  print  the  entire  letter, 
for  the  last  part  of  it  presents  a  curious  con 
trast,  and  is  more  characteristic  of  college  life 
according  to  Princeton  "  principles :  "  — 

CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO  CHARLES    LELAND 

DEAR  FATHER,  —  I  have  resolved  to  write 
you  a  few  lines  although  there  is  a  wondrous 
dearth  of  news.  All  the  talk  here  to-day  is 


46   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

about  a  great  battle  which  came  very  near 
being  fought  last  night  down  at  the  aque 
duct  between  some  railroad  men,  Jerseymen, 
etc.,  and  the  Students.  In  fact,  some  blows 
did  pass,  and  one  or  two  men  were  knocked 
down  on  both  sides,  but  a  re-inforcement  of 
about  50  students  with  the  President,  Dodd, 
and  one  or  two  tutors  restored  order  and 
compelled  the  Jerseymen  to  seek  safety  in 
flight.  Let  me  state  that  the  attack  was  a 
most  cowardly  affair  —  the  students  were  in 
sulted  and  struck  without  the  slightest  pro 
vocation.  Our  examination  is  now  over  and 
in  fact  our  last  examination  took  place  on  Sat 
urday.  I  confidently  anticipate  a  higher  grade. 
I  find,  however,  that  I  have  made  a  sad  mis 
take,  this  Session,  in  not  attending  morning 
prayers.  I  had  thought  that  those  who  boarded 
out  in  town  were  excused,  and  I  believe  so 
yet,  but  the  tutor  says  no !  and  tells  me  to  ask 
a  professor,  which  I  intend  to  do.  I  doubt 
not  but  that  I  can  get  excused  for  the  past 
omissions.  I  should  have  said  that  the  tutor 
told  me  that  the  exemption  held  good  only  in 
the  winter  term. 

Your  affectionate  son, 

CARL  G.  LELAND. 


PRINCETON  47 

The  second  of  the  two  letters  was  written  the 
following  year,  and  throws  its  little  side-light 
on  the  history  not  only  of  the  college,  but  of 
the  country. 

CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO   CHARLES   LELAND 

PRINCETON,  Sunday,  1843. 

DEAR  FATHER, —  I  received  Henry's  letter 
yesterday  morning  and  must  beg  you  to  excuse 
my  writing  so  often.  Old  Mr.  Phillips  wished 
to  know  yesterday  if  I  could  pay  some  of  my 
board — he  was  not  urgent,  however.  Will  you 
be  so  kind  as  to  get  me  a  copy  of  yesterday's 
"  Saturday  Evening  Post"?  There  is  in  it  an 
account  of  the  President's  arrival  in  Prince 
ton  which  abuses  the  Students  very  much.  It 
is  exaggerated.  It  is  true  that  they  did  hiss 
Tyler,  but  not  much.  The  way  it  went  was 
this.  After  Dodd  had  delivered  his  address, 
the  President  responded  (by  the  way,  I  stood 
within  a  yard  of  him),  and  when  he  had  con 
cluded,  one  or  two  tried  to  hurrah.  Then  a 
partial  hiss  arose  and  some  one  then  cried  out, 
"  Three  cheers  for  Professor  Dodd  " —  which 
were  given.  Then  the  soldiers  gave  three  for 
Tyler.  The  "  N.  York  Herald  "  told  an  outra- 


48       CHARLES   GODFREY  LELAND 

geous  lie  when  it  said  that  Horner  incited  the 
students  to  hiss.  There  was  a  great  blowout 
at  Capt.  Stockton's  that  evening.  Many  peo 
ple  (including  students)  went  up  and  were  in 
troduced  to  Tyler.  I  might  have  been  if  I  had 
gone.  A  great  many  people  got  quite  drunk 
while  there,  and  Stockton  himself  was  not 
quite  sober,  so  they  say.  We  are  to  hold  a 
Sophomore  Commencement  at  the  end  of  this 
Session.  I  have  been  elected  Valedictorium. 
Give  my  best  love  to  Mother,  sisters,  and 
Henry,  and  believe  me  to  be 

Your  affectionate  son, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 

P.  S.  I  will  send  you  up  to-morrow  a  copy 
of  the  "Princeton  Whig"  containing  Dodd's 
speech  and  Tyler's  reply. 

If  the  other  letters  from  Princeton  have 
nothing  again  as  exciting  as  rebellion  to 
chronicle,  they  are  all  suggestive  of  Princeton 
life,  and  Princeton  expenses,  and  the  occupa 
tions  and  anxieties,  some  prophetic  in  a  way, 
of  the  student  who  eventually  was  to  rank  as 
one  of  Princeton's  most  distinguished  gradu 
ates. 


PRINCETON  49 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  CHARLES  LELAND 

PRINCETON,  March  20,  '43. 

DEAR  FATHER,  —  I  have  not  received  any 
letter  from  home  for  more  than  a  week  and 
have  delayed  writing  myself,  hoping  to  get 
something  by  each  successive  post.  I  am 
very  well,  and  await  examination,  as  usual  a 
little  afraid  but  with  no  guilty  feelings.  Mr. 
Phillips  intends  moving  in  two  or  three  days 
—  I  must  consequently  go  to  Mrs.  Passage's 
and  board,  the  last  week  of  this  session.  I 
only  found  out  on  Saturday  that  Mr.  Phillips 
intended  moving  so  soon.  My  books,  etc.  I 
shall  leave  in  a  friend's  room  in  College,  or 
at  Mrs.  Passage's  under  Fonte's  care.  The 
next  and  greatest  question  is,  what  shall  I  do 
next  session  for  board  —  the  only  way  to  get 
a  room  in  College  is  to  take  a  room  and  buy 
the  furniture,  for  every  room  in  College  is 
now  occupied  and  will  be  still  more  so  next 
session.  Fonte,  however,  intends  going  out 
of  College  and  will  give  his  room  (one  of  the 
very  best)  to  any  one  who  will  buy  his  furni 
ture  (which,  with  the  exception  of  the  carpet, 
is  the  same  that  George  Boker  had)  —  for  30 
or  40  dollars  —  which  is  very  cheap.  I  have 


50   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

promised  him  that  I  would  let  him  know  by 
the  end  of  this  week  whether  I  would  take  his 
room  or  not.  So  please  to  let  me  know  as 
soon  as  convenient  what  you  think  about  it. 

We  can  get  board  out  in  town  equal  to 
what  Mrs.  Burroughs  used  to  give  (or  better) 
for  the  College  price.  So  I  hope  that  I  may 
board  out  anyhow.  Mr.  Phillips  is  in  some 
trouble  about  his  taxes,  and  wants  to  know  if 
you  will  be  so  kind  as  to  let  him  have  a  little 
money. 

I  have  tried  to  get  other  rooms  in  College, 
but  the  students  say  that  I  cannot.  There 
are  one  or  two  other  applicants  for  Fonte's 
room,  but  he  will  let  me  have  it  in  prefer 
ence. 

As  my  removal  of  my  things  (bureau,  car 
pet,  etc.)  will  cost  something  and  as  I  must  buy 
a  box  to  put  the  books  in,  and  spend  divers 
moneys  to  get  all  fixed  for  departure,  and  as 
I  am  very  poor  just  now,  will  you  be  so  kind 
as  to  send  me  five  dollars  ?  I  am  very  sorry  to 
be  obliged  to  ask  for  it,  for  I  have  not  been 
wasteful  this  session.  Give  my  love  to  Mother, 
Henry  and  sisters,  and  believe  me  to  be 
Your  affectionate  son, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 


PRINCETON  51 

P.  S.  I  forgot  to  say  that  I  must  pay  Mrs. 
Passage  4  dollars  for  a  week's  board  —  i.  e. 
the  next. 

We  have  had  several  noted  New  York 
ministers  preaching  in  our  Episcopal  Church, 
which  I  now  attend  regularly.  They  were  all 
more  or  less  Puseyites,  for  Bishop  Doane  sends 
them  on  here  to  preach  every  Sunday,  as  we 
have  no  regular  clergyman  here  —  they  were 
all  first-class  preachers  too.  I  heard  Dr. 
Wainwright  (the  Dr.  Wain wright)  preach  here 
lately  —  also  Messrs.  Seabury  and  Higham, 
of  whom  you  have  doubtless  heard.  I  am 
getting  to  be  a  little  of  a  regular  secessionist 
Tractarian  myself,  in  other  words  a  Puseyite. 
Their  only  object  seems  to  be  to  establish  an 
universal  Church  after  Dr.  Channing's  plan. 
The  leaders,  to  be  sure,  are  a  little  too  Romish. 
But  there  must  be  some  form  of  religion  to 
rule  the  vulgar,  otherwise  we  will  be  run  down 
soon  with  Millerism,  Mormons,  etc. 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  CHARLES  LELAND 

PRINCETON,  May  8,  1844. 

DEAR  FATHER, —  It  is  so  long  since  I  have 
written  to  you  that  I  doubt  not  you  think  me 
very  neglectful.  But  knowing  your  weak 


52   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

state  of  health  I  have  thought  that  any  exer 
tion  such  as  writing  a  regular  letter  might 
prove  far  from  beneficial.  I  received  a  letter 
and  paper  from  Henry  last  night,  and  was 
very  sorry  to  hear  of  the  riots.  What  is  your 
opinion  of  the  Native  Am.  party  ?  .  . . 

What  do  you  think  of  Frelinghuysen  as  a 
candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency  ?  He  will 
certainly  do  a  great  deal  towards  attaching 
the  religious  and  literary  influence  to  the 
Whig  party.  I  am  trying  to  leave  off 
smoking  —  [unsuccessfully,  in  the  end,  I  am 
afraid] —  I  have  smoked  very  little  this  ses 
sion,  and  have  only  had  one  cigar  (and  no 
pipe)  for  two  days  —  tell  this  to  Henry  —  I 
am  in  earnest.  Mrs.  Passage  gave  me  some 
advice  on  the  subject.  The  Mathematics  are 
still  keeping  me  behindhand.  I  shall  however 
begin  the  Senior  Year  splendidly,  for  I  shall 
then  have  a  clear  field.  It  is  impossible  to  do 
much  now  except  study  Latin  and  Locke. 
Prof.  McLean  (Greek  Professor)  has  gone  to 
Kentucky  to  defend  the  Princeton  party  in 
the  Presbyterian  party  in  the  General  As 
sembly. 

I  like  Mrs.  Passage's  better  than  ever*  I 
sit  often  with  them  in  the  evening.  They  re- 


PRINCETON  53 

member  you  all,  and  want  to  see  Henry  very 
much. 

If  it  were  possible  for  me  to  come  down  and 
pass  some  Sunday  with  you  I  should  like  it 
very  much  —  I  have  to  speak  a  Junior  speech 
at  commencement  and  want  some  book  help 
that  I  cannot  get  here.  Please  to  send  me 
the  Philadelphia  papers  containing  a  full  ac 
count  of  all  the  riots.  They  have  not  as  yet 
terminated,  I  believe.  Give  my  best  love  to 
Mother,  Henry,  and  Sisters,  and  believe  me 
to  be 

Your  affectionate  son, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 

I  may  as  well  say,  if  it  be  worth  saying, 
that  I  have  the  advantage  of  talking  as  much 
French  now  as  I  choose,  and  have  improved 
in  it  very  much.  There  is  a  Mr.  De  Voil  here 
teaching  in  Mr.  Vine's  school  with  whom  I 
am  well  acquainted.  I  talk  it  with  him  and 
Senakerim  the  Armenian.  Shall  I  get  my 
summer  hat  done  up  here  ? 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  MRS.  CHARLES  LELAND 

PRINCETON,  May  26,  1845. 

DEAR  MOTHER, —  Father  has  doubtless  by 
this  time  seen  Mr.  Bond,  who  went  through 


54   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

here  last  night  on  his  way  to  Philadelphia.  I 
have  been  in  very  good  health  —  so  much  for 
your  fears.  Our  examination  was  a  mere  trifle. 
I  did  well  on  the  Latin,  and  as  for  the  Greek, 
only  myself  and  another  student  attended  it  — 
the  rest  all  staid  away,  and  no  account  will  be 
taken  of  them.  I  received  the  cigars,  and  you 
may  tell  Henry  that  those  who  have  smoked 
them  here,  think  them  equal  to  anything  — 
so  much  for  his  judgment.  I  am  well  fixed  at 
Mrs.  Phillips'  and  I  hope  to  stay  here  —  I 
have  got  number  1 7  and  have  my  carpet  laid 
down  in  the  same.  I  told  her  the  next  day 
after  I  came  that  I  would  sooner  go  in  College 
than  take  her  other  room,  and  behaved  on  the 
whole  considerably  like  the  P.  of  O.  when  he 
said  "  advance  "  or  "  retire  "  to  the  servants — 
which  dignified  and  gentlemanly  deportment 
got  me  everything  that  I  wanted.  There  is  a 
book  which  I  may  want  when  we  get  a  little 
further  in  Cicero,  viz.,  "  Henry's  History  of 
Philosophy,"  2  vols,  price  one  dollar.  I  find 
that  it  is  much  the  best  course  for  me  to  take 
to  send  for  books  to  Philadelphia — those 
which  I  received  from  you  would  have  cost 
$2.00  or  more  here.  If  Henry  can  pick  those 
books  up  cheap,  let  him  try  —  they  are  Har- 


PRINCETON  55 

per's  fam.  library  edition.  Give  my  best  love  to 
Father,  Sisters,  and  Henry,  and  believe  me 

Your  affectionate  son. 
P.  S.  How  is  Mary?  She  was  quite  ill 
when  I  came  away.  Tell  Henry  to  keep  ahead 
in  his  Spanish.  Were  the  French  books  all 
right  ?  Mind  and  cover  the  "  Amis  des  en- 
fants,"  for  it  is  a  valuable  book. 

Yours  affectionately, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 

I  print  no  more  of  the  Princeton  letters,  be 
cause  the  rest  are  mainly  taken  up  with  the 
same  subject  of  lodging,  entering  into  minute 
details  in  connection  with  it  that  would  seem 
pathetic  to  any  steam-heated,  electric-lighted 
student  of  to-day.  "  I  have  paid  Voorhees 
4.75  for  y±  of  a  cord  of  wood  ; "  "I  have  got 
half  a  cord  of  wood  ; "  "I  have  about  three 
barrels  of  coal  left  and  plenty  of  candles ;  " 
are  notes  I  find  in  letter  after  letter.  I  fancy, 
however,  that  all  the  relations  between  father 
and  son,  as  they  were  then,  would  seem  bar 
barous  to  a  modern  student  with  his  own 
tailor  and  his  own  bank  account.  The  son 
might  rise  to  the  dignity  of  Freshman,  Sopho 
more,  Junior,  Senior,  he  might  already  be  an 


56   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

adept  in  Neo-Platonism  and  a  Master  of 
German  philosophy,  but  he  still  had  to  go, 
like  a  child,  to  the  father  for  his  clothes  and 
the  money  to  pay  for  them.  "  I  do  not  want 
any  clothes  at  present.  I  may  perhaps  want 
a  pair  of  pants  next  vacation  but  not  before," 
one  letter  says.  And  the  next :  "  I  wish  that 
you  would  get  my  boots  made  with  high  heels 
—  not  through  any  motive  of  foppery,  but 
I  really  want  them  made  so  to  wear  with 
these  summer  pants.  If  you  would  bring 
me  also  a  pair  of  leather  straps  and  y2  a 
doz.  steel  pens  you  would  oblige  me  very 
much." 

Curiously  it  is  for  his  mother  all  talk  about 
the  books  he  reads,  and  the  "  pieces "  he 
writes,  is  reserved.  "  I  have  been  reading 
lately  in  the  different  Platonic  commentators," 
he  tells  her ;  "  Cudworth,  Taylor,  etc.  ...  I 
was  very  much  troubled  by  Henry's  old  news 
papers  this  morning,  change  not  being  handy, 
but  the  *  Legend  of  Albertus  Magnus  '  simply 
atoned  for  all  that.  I  hope  that  he  will  send 
me  everything  of  the  kind  that  he  can  find." 
His  "pieces,"  as  early  as  1842,  were  appear 
ing  in  the  college  and  other  magazines. 
"  Mind  and  look  out  for  the  c  Magazine  for  the 


PRINCETON  57 

Million,'  and  send  it  to  me  if  my  piece  is  in," 
he  asks,  and  from  the  following  passage  I 
gather  that  Philadelphia  —  or  the  very  small 
part  of  Philadelphia  with  literary  aspirations 
—  began  to  talk  of  his  "  pieces  "  in  that  same 
year.  Miss  Leslie  is,  of  course,  the  Miss 
Leslie  of  cookery  fame,  his  mother's  old 
friend,  whom  he  had  known  since  his  child 
hood.  "  I  am  extremely  flattered  by  Miss 
Leslie's  commendation,  the  more  so  as  it 
agrees  with  the  opinion  of  our  Jersey  news 
papers  in  this  and  other  towns,  all  of  which 
have  spoken  of  my  piece,  as  well  as  the  others, 
in  a  flattering  manner." 

Some  of  these  "  pieces  "  are  in  my  posses 
sion,  and  they  have  such  themes  as  "  Pro 
gress  of  the  Soul,"  "Later  Mystics  in  the 
Middle  Ages,"  "  The  Dream  Angel,"  this  last 
dated  "  Nov.  30  and  Dec.  ist,  1844.  That  is 
I  began  it  on  the  night  of  Nov.  3Oth  and  fin 
ished  it  on  the  afternoon  of  Dec.  ist.  I  sat 
up  till  two  or  3  o'clock  last  night,  writing  it, 
and  got  a  most  inconveniently  cold  breakfast 
at  a  late  hour  this  morning."  Then,  below,  in 
different  ink  :  "  It  has  since  appeared  in  the 
'Knickerbocker'  of  Jan.  1845."  He  was  tak 
ing  things  at  Princeton  seriously,  as  every 


58   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

healthy,  right-minded  young  student  should, 
but  he  had  the  gift  then,  as  throughout  life, 
4of  taking  them  humorously  as  well,  and  in 
these  letters  to  his  mother  he  could  some 
times  throw  off  his  graver  responsibilities  for 
the  sake  of  a  laugh.  "  I  have  just  come  from 
Greek  Testament  recitation,"  he  could  go  out 
of  his  way  to  write  to  her, "  where  I  heard  the 
following  translation  —  Matthew  8.  20.  *  The 
birds  have  their  holes,  and  the  foxes  of  the  air 
their  nests.  " 

When  I  remember  Tom  Brown  and  the 
"lion's  provider,"  I  have  my  suspicion  that 
the  Rye  had  reasons  of  his  own  for  letting 
Henry  write  home  of  a  still  gayer  jest. 
Neither  of  the  brothers  often  permitted  him 
self  the  least  flippancy  in  writing  to  the  fa 
ther,  but  Henry,  plainly,  was  too  bubbling 
over  with  the  fun  of  it  to  resist  telling  him, 
"  There  is  a  menagerie  in  Princeton,  and 
there  is  a  man  here  with  it  who  will  bring  out 
a  wild  denizen  of  the  forest,  that  is,  a  lion. 
It  is  a  queer  name  for  this  animal,  to  be  sure, 
but  yet  this  name  goes  down  very  well  here, 
and  I  suppose  will  serve  to  gull  some  few  poor 
fellows."  The  Princetonian  may  explain,  if 
he  can,  the  relations  between  the  "  wild  deni- 


PRINCETON  59 

zen  of  the  forest "  and  his  own  song  of  Van 
Ambergh  and  the  marvellous  menagerie, — 
upon  such  important  matters  in  college  his 
tory  I  would  not  venture  to  speak  with  a  pre 
tence  of  authority.  I  often  wondered,  though 
I  always  forgot  to  ask  the  Rye,  whether  it 
was  he  who  wrote  that  song. 

If  the  Rye's  letters  to  his  father  were  sel 
dom  gay,  they  were  always  cheerful.  He  kept 
up  as  brave  a  front  as  he  could,  though  he 
never  found  Princeton  congenial. 

He  had  his  friends,  and  friends  help  to 
lighten  the  heaviest  burden.  How  well  they 
entered  into  his  interests  and  fancies,  I  know 
from  the  little  pile  of  their  letters  which  he 
carefully  preserved.  "  I  shall  call  and  see  you 
and  hear  you  relate  the  adventures  you  have 
had  since  I  saw  you,"  one  friend  writes  to 
"  Princeton,  i.  e.  land  of  smoke,"  from  Pitts- 
burg,  in  the  midst  of  the  holiday  labour  of 
"  learning  to  play  the  flute  and  clarionet  so  I 
can  entertain  the  ladies."  "  I  have  heard  of 
your  writings,"  a  second  tells  him,  in  1842  : 
"  your  grand  entree  has  been  the  talk  about 
town  for  weeks  past."  "  My  dear  Behmenite," 
a  third  begins,  and  goes  on  to  beseech  him  to 
throw  Behmen  into  the  Delaware  and  Para- 


60   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

celsus  to  the  winds,  to  let  lamblicus  and  the 
whole  host  of  Neo-Platonists  perish  together, 
and  to  try  Boccaccio  instead.  Other  friends 
regret  that  they  have  not  been  reading  some 
interesting  work  on  mental  philosophy  that 
they  might  converse  with  him  upon  it,  or  they 
upbraid  him  for  his  heartlessness  in  sending 
them  Kant  to  translate,  while  the  Fonte  who 
appears  for  a  moment  in  the  family  corre 
spondence  finds  it  "devilish  lonely  "in  Prince 
ton  without  the  young  "  Transcendentalist," 
detained  at  home  by  illness.  He  longs  "  for 
a  real  intellectual  talk  once  more,  —  I  care 
not  how  Gothic  or  spiritual,"  —  and  is  much 
obliged  for  the  pipes  the  convalescent  has  not 
forgotten  to  procure  for  him.  Of  long  talks 
late  into  the  night,  over  these  and  other  pipes, 
there  are  many  hints;  there  is  also  much 
light  and  cheerful  banter;  and  the  impression 
the  letters  have  left  with  me  is  that  the 
friends  the  Rye  made  at  Princeton  were  one 
of  the  few  compensations  it  offered  for  its 
heartlessness  as  Mala  Mater. 

Another  compensation  was  in  the  pleasant 
ness  of  his  relations  with  two  or  three  of  the 
professors  who  proved  sympathetic :  Joseph 
Henry,  "  the  first  natural  philosopher  and 


PRINCETON  61 

lecturer  on  science  then  in  America ; "  James 
Alexander,  clear-headed,  but  with  the  stern 
ness  of  a  Covenanter  in  his  glance ;  and,  above 
all,  Albert  Dodd,  a  man  in  whom  "  an  Italian 
witch,  or  red  Indian,  or  a  gypsy  would  at 
once  have  recognised  a  sorcerer,"  and  who,  as 
professor,  lectured  on  architecture,  a  subject 
this  one  of  his  students  had  already  studied 
"  passionately,"  and  moreover  from  the  same 
standpoint. 

But  these  men  were  then  exceptions,  and, 
as  at  school,  the  youth  was  forced  back  upon 
his  own  resources.  He  continued  to  read 
voluminously,  uncontrolled  save  by  personal 
inclination.  "  I  did  not  read  for  a  purpose,  but 
to  gratify  an  intense  passion,"  is  the  reason 
jotted  down  in  the  "  Memoranda."  He  knew 
too  much  of  Kant,  had  listened  too  often  to  Dr. 
Furness,  to  be  guided  in  his  reading  by  pro 
fessors  who  shrunk  from  Voltaire  and  Tom 
Paine  and  other  "  exploded  dangers,"  and  who 
prescribed  Paley's  "  Evidences  of  Christian 
ity."  It  was  like  inviting  Carlyle's  young  lion 
to  a  feast  of  chickweed,  he  thought.  Left 
to  direct  his  own  reading,  he  chanced  upon 
vast  measures  of  strange  matter  in  the  library 
of  the  Princeton  Theological  Seminary.  Out 


62   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

of  a  cob-webbed  dusty  pile  of  books  in  a 
corner  of  a  waste-room,  he  raked  a  black- 
letter  Lyly's  "  Euphues,"  an  "  Erra  Pater,"  and 
other  marvels  so  little  esteemed  in  Princeton 
that  one  of  the  professors,  seeing  him  "  daft 
with  delight  over  his  finds,"  told  him  he  was 
welcome  to  keep  them,  which  he  was  too 
honest  to  do,  and  they  may  be  now  some 
where  on  the  library  shelves  of  a  more  en 
lightened  Faculty. 

Of  his  unhappiness  at  Princeton  I  shall  say 
no  more.  His  "  Memoirs  "  give  details  interest 
ing  to  the  historian  of  the  college.  But  the 
years  there  leave  a  blank  in  the  history  of  his 
own  development. 

He  did  graduate  at  the  end  of  four  years, 
but  he  agreed  with  an  unknown  writer  who, 
a  quarter  of  a  century  later  in  "  The  Nas 
sau  Monthly,"  declared  that  if  Charles  God 
frey  Leland  had  become  known  in  literature, 
it  was  in  spite  of  his  college.  Because  he  fell 
so  short  in  mathematics,  he  was  rated  the 
lowest  except  one  of  his  class.  The  authori 
ties,  apparently,  were  conscious  of  some  in 
congruity  between  the  brilliant  talents  of  the 
student  and  the  lowness  of  his  grade.  For, 
of  the  two  great  honours,  the  Valedictory 


PRINCETON  63 

Oration  and  the  Valedictory  Poem,  the  sec 
ond  was  awarded  to  him.  But  his  youth 
ful  pride  had  been  hurt  to  the  quick.  He 
declined  the  honour,  though  he  wrote  the 
poem  and  submitted  the  manuscript  to  the 
Faculty  to  show  them  that  they  were  not 
mistaken  and  that  he  was  not  unworthy  of 
the  distinction. 

From  Princeton  he  returned  to  Philadel 
phia,  much  as  he  had  left  it :  as  unversed  in 
the  ways  of  the  world  as  "  most  boys  in  the 
United  States  are  at  twelve  or  thirteen,"  an 
insatiate  reader  of  books,  a  dreamer  to  whom 
the  past  was  more  real  than  the  present,  and 
the  mysteries  of  nature  and  philosophy  as 
important  as  the  practical  problems  of  exist 
ence  ;  a  youth  as  little  fitted  to  face  the  busi 
ness  of  life  as  the  student  had  been  prepared 
to  face  the  business  of  college.  He  often  re 
gretted  it,  he  often  thought  what  he  might 
have  been,  what  he  might  have  done,  brought 
up  in  another  town  and  trained  in  the  stimu 
lating  atmosphere  of  "  liberal  "  Harvard.  It 
is  true  that  Boston,  or  even  New  York,  com 
bined  with  Harvard,  might  have  turned  him 
out  a  literary  man,  a  professor,  of  the  regula 
tion  pattern.  But  Philadelphia  and  Princeton 


64   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

did  better.  They  left  him  to  develop  himself 
on  his  own  lines,  a  fact,  much  as  he  was  in 
clined  to  deplore  it,  that  helped  to  make  of 
him  one  of  the  most  picturesque  figures  and 
strongest  individualities  in  American  litera 
ture. 


CHAPTER  III 

HEIDELBERG 

FORTUNATELY  for  the  Rye,  the  problem  of  a 
career  was  postponed  for  a  little.  His  father 
suggested  that  he  should  go  to  Europe,  partly 
for  his  health,  which  continued  delicate,  partly 
for  study.  Half  a  century  later,  he  could 
not  write  without  something  of  the  old  joy 
in  everything  the  three  years  that  followed 
(1845-1848)  had  been  to  him.  What  "going 
to  Europe "  meant  to  any  American  sixty 
years  ago  is  not  easy  to  understand  to-day, 
when  it  has  become  a  national  habit.  Still 
less  easy  is  it  to  realize  all  it  represented  to 
this  special  young  American,  who  had,  "  as 
indeed  for  many  years  before,  such  a  desire 
to  visit  Europe  that  I  might  almost  have 
died  of  it."  Passage  was  engaged  in  a  sailing 
ship  bound  for  Marseilles.  With  him  was  his 
cousin,  Samuel  Godfrey,  then  threatened  with 
consumption,  for  whom  the  journey  was  a 
last  but  unsuccessful  bid  for  strength ;  and 
among  his  fellow-passengers  was  Fanny 


66   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Kemble,  already  too  famous,  however,  to 
condescend  to  speak  to  any  one  on  board.  I 
doubt  if  life  ever  held  for  the  Rye  another 
moment  as  fair  as  the  moment  of  sailing, 
unless,  indeed,  it  was  when,  weeks  later,  on 
that  slow,  that  deliciously  slow  sailing  vessel, 
"a  fishing  smack  came  clipping  under  her 
lees  "  —  I  can  fancy  his  joy  in  the  nautical 
sound  of  it  —  and,  at  the  captain's  request,  he 
flung  down  a  question  in  Spanish  to  the  fish 
erman  :  "  Adonde  venga  V.  ?  "  — where  do  you 
come  from  ?  The  cynical  may  see  in  this 
only  a  phrase  that  any  child  or  bungler  could 
borrow  from  a  phrase-book.  But  to  the  young 
Philadelphian  it  was  the  miracle  of  miracles, 
for  it  was  his  first  word  in  a  European  lan 
guage  to  a  European  in  Europe ! 

What  is  now  the  commonplace  of  travel 
was  to  him  an  endless  marvel.  Every  person 
he  saw  seemed  a  figure  out  of  romance,  every 
word  he  heard  was  music  in  his  ears.  The 
first  landing  was  at  Gibraltar,  —  "  like  a  fancy 
ball"  he  thought  its  streets,  remembering 
sober  Philadelphia.  When  his  ship  set  sail 
again,  it  was  to  skirt  a  coast  where  there  were 
ruins  to  sketch  all  day  long ;  when  he  came 
into  the  harbour  of  Marseilles,  it  was  to  see 


HEIDELBERG  67 

the  sails  he  had  never  as  yet  seen  except  on 
old  Phenician  coins,  to  hear  the  boatmen 
crying  aloud  in  the  tongue  of  the  trouba 
dours,  strange  to  him  hitherto  except  on  the 
printed  page.  And  scarcely  had  he  set  foot 
upon  Proven9al  shores  before  he  was  deep  in 
adventures  of  a  kind  that  always  had  for  him 
a  curious  fascination,  —  the  adventures  with 
strange  people  that  he  was  to  seek  eventually 
in  the  Gypsy  camp  and  among  the  witches 
of  Tuscany.  A  fellow-passenger,  an  actor,  got 
into  difficulties,  and  the  young  Leland,  called 
to  the  rescue,  found  himself  in  a  den  of 
Spanish  smugglers,  and  his  story  of  how 
he  sang  their  own  smuggling  songs  —  not 
learned  at  Princeton  — "  with  a  crowd  of  dark, 
fierce,  astonished  faces  round"  him,  reads  like 
the  description  of  many  a  visit  to  a  Romany 
tent  in  the  years  to  come.  Then  the  captain 
of  the  ship  had  taken  a  fancy  to  the  Philadel 
phia  boy,  —  he  was  really  little  more,  —  in 
many  ways  so  ignorant,  in  many  ways  so  full 
of  the  knowledge  least  to  be  looked  for  from 
him,  and  in  Marseilles  introduced  him  to  an 
old  slaver  and  pirate,  —  company  that  would 
have  startled  the  family  at  home,  living  the 
respectable  life  of  Walnut  Street 


68   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

But  the  picturesqueness  of  place  was  call 
ing,  and  Provence  overflowed  with  it.  Mont- 
pellier,  Aries,  Nimes,  Avignon  were  towns 
study  had  made  as  familiar  to  him  as  Phila 
delphia  and  Princeton,  Dedham  and  Milford. 
It  was  like  having  old  dreams  come  true  to 
stand  in  front  of  their  "  antiquities,"  to  pass 
between  the  olive  gardens  and  vineyards  of 
this  "sunburnt-land,"  to  live  for  a  day  or  a 
night  where  troubadours  long  since  sang  the 
songs  that,  reechoing  across  the  centuries 
and  the  seas,  had  reached  him  in  the  still 
songless  town  on  the  Delaware.  He  found  it 
natural  to  be  there,  that  was  the  strangest 
part  of  it  all.  He  used  to  laugh  when  he  re 
membered  the  youthful  assurance  with  which 
he  had  talked  of  Proven9al  art  and  song  to 
Saint-Rene  Taillandier,  to  whom  he  had 
brought  a  letter  of  introduction. 

After  Provence,  it  was  Italy ;  the  journey 
by  sea  from  Marseilles  to  Naples,  with  one 
day  at  Leghorn  on  the  way,  another  at  Genoa. 
In  his  "  Memoirs  "  he  congratulates  his  read 
ers  on  their  escape  because  the  journal  he 
kept  at  the  time  was  not  then  at  hand  to  quote 
from.  But  whoever  cares  for  Italy,  or  the  study 
of  character  in  its  development,  must  regret 


HEIDELBERG  69 

that  this  journal  is  not  yet,  and  therefore 
probably  never  will  be,  "  at  hand,"  never  can 
be  quoted  from.  For  the  Italy  he  saw  was  the 
wonderful  old  Italy,  vanished  as  completely 
as  his  daily  notes  of  it,  while  the  travels  of 
those  impressionable  years  rounded  out  the 
work  begun  by  Philadelphia  and  Princeton, 
bringing  what  he  calls  his  "  buds  of  strange 
kind  and  promise  "  to  their  flowering.  He 
stayed  "a  long  beautiful  month"  in  Naples; 
then,  by  vettura,  —  and  the  word  to  him  was 
so  full  of  romance,  I  have  not  the  heart  to 
use  the  plain  English  carriage,  —  he  jour 
neyed  on  to  Rome,  to  Florence,  to  Venice. 
The  landmarks  these  of  the  regulation  Cook's 
Tour,  it  may  be  objected.  But  in  1846  Cook 
did  not  exist,  the  regulation  tour  had  not  been 
invented,  and  the  journey  appeared  one  of 
some  hazard  to  the  least  imaginative  traveller. 
To  the  youth  who  had  almost  died  of  his 
desire  for  Europe,  it  was  a  much  more  emo 
tional,  much  more  wonderful  undertaking. 
The  hope  of  "  strange  "  adventures  gave  zest 
to  every  stage  of  it.  In  Naples  things  went 
tamely,  but  there  was  the  delightful  conscious 
ness  that,  had  he  not  joined  company  with 
Mr.  James  Temple  Bowdoin  of  Boston  and 


70   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Mr.  Mosely,  editor  of  the  "Richmond  Whig," 
friends  made  on  the  boat  from  Marseilles,  he 
might  already  have  been  "  the  beloved  chief 
of  a  band  of  Gypsies,  or  brigands,  or  witches, 
or  careering  the  wild  sea-wave  as  a  daring 
smuggler."  He  really  would  —  could  —  never 
have  been  anything  so  lawless.  But  he  had 
a  literary  sense  of  the  value  of  the  situation 
that  turned  the  possibility  into  an  enormous 
adventure  in  itself.  In  Rome,  he  spent  days 
of  "glorious  scampering  and  investigating, 
rooting  and  rummaging"  in  "galleries  and 
gardens,  ruins  and  palaces ; "  he  shared  in 
the  splendour  and  the  gaiety  of  the  Carni 
val,  "  the  last  real  one  which  Italy  ever  beheld  " 
—  the  Carnival  of  1 846 ;  he  was  a  guest  at 
the  famous  Torlonia  entertainments.  But  the 
crowning  pleasure  was  the  chance  that  made 
him  the  lodger,  and  promptly  the  friend,  of 
Giuseppe  Navone,  the  head  of  the  Roman 
police,  to  whom  the  pirate  of  Marseilles  was 
as  "  a  lamb  and  an  angel  of  light."  Here  was 
the  substance  of  adventure,  not  the  shadow, 
and  Rome  dwindled  into  a  background  for 
this  "  rum  couple  of  friends."  The  journey  to 
Florence  was  by  vettura  and  boat,  but  if  won 
ders  were  passed  by  the  way,  they  were  lost 


HEIDELBERG  71 

in  the  amazement  of  the  traveller  at  finding 
himself  a  "  pet  child  of  the  Roman  police  " 
and  learning  that  "  the  great  and  good  Navone 
had  done  it  all."  In  Florence  there  were 
pictures  to  be  seen,  Proven9al  and  Italian 
poetry  in  illuminated  MSS.  to  be  read,  Hiram 
Powers  and  other  popular  artists  to  be  vis 
ited,  ices  to  be  eaten  at  Doni's;  but  there  were 
also  lovely  Polish  countesses  with  extraordi 
nary  "table  manners"  and  more  extraordinary 
political  views,  and  Polish  anarchists  in  red 
dressing-gowns  and  looking  the  "sorcerer 
just  out  of  a  Sabbat."  In  Venice  —  well, 
"  There  had  been  a  time  in  America  when, 
if  I  could  have  truthfully  declared  that  I  had 
ever  been  in  a  gondola,  I  should  have  felt  as 
if  I  held  a  diploma  of  nobility  in  the  Grand 
Order  of  Cosmopolites."  And  "  so  we  passed 
through  beautiful  Lombardy  and  came  to 
Domo  d'  Ossola."  And  the  Simplon  was  the 
road,  by  way  of  Switzerland,  to  Germany, 
the  home  of  Kant  and  Fichte  and  Hegel, 
—  the  home  by  study  and  sympathy  of  this 
"  strange  duckling "  in  the  Princeton  brood, 
known  with  a  thoroughness  that  won  for  him, 
before  he  crossed  the  frontier,  the  nickname 
of  "  Germanicus." 


72   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

From  letters  written  to  him  at  the  time  by 
his  father  and  mother,  and,  above  all,  by  his 
brother,  Henry  Leland,  I  gather  that  he  sent 
home  glowing  accounts  of  this  journey.  But 
in  my  collection  of  his  papers  there  is  nothing 
relating  to  it,  except  a  fragment  of  a  letter, 
never  finished,  to  his  friend  William  Tiffany. 
This  may  be  because  the  descriptions  he  wrote 
for  his  family  were  passed  on  by  them  to 
11  Godey's  Lady's  Book,"  "  Neal's  Gazette,"  and, 
eventually,  the  "  North  American,"  which  was 
strongly  and  rightly  recommended  to  him  by 
his  mother  as  a  paper  of  more  weight  and  im 
portance.  She,  anyway,  saw  how  things  were 
drifting  -and  was  quick  to  encourage  him  in 
publishing  all  he  could,  for  she  had  heard,  so 
she  wrote  him, .that,  as  a  rule,  literary  men  of 
eminence  began  by  contributing  to  the  press. 
His  letters,  before  they  got  into  print,  must 
naturally  have  been  somewhat  edited,  in  the 
process  losing  the  personal  note  which  was 
their  great  charm ;  for  this  reason  I  prefer  to 
quote  the  gay  little  fragment  preserved  by 
chance  in  the  Rye's  letter  files,  rather  than 
to  resurrect  letters  transformed  into  news 
paper  articles. 


HEIDELBERG  73 


CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO   WILLIAM    TIFFANY 

BERNE,  May  2d,  1846. 

DEAR  TIFFANY,  —  A  very  pretty  madchen 
has  just  brought  me  up  my  allowance  of  beer 
for  the  evening —  I  have  a  terrible!  atrocious! 
meerschaum  in  my  mouth.  In  the  next  room 
(separated  by  a  wall  four  feet  thick)  a  company 
of  officers  are  making  merry.  By  me  is  a 
SHORT  bed,  about  four  feet  deep  with  mat 
tresses  ;  on  top  lies  an  eider  down  quilt  almost 
as  thick.  Where  am  I  ?  In  the  German 
Schweitz  —  in  the  ancient  city  Berne  —  in 
the  Pfistern-Zunft !  or  the  Abbaye  des  Bou- 
langers.  All  is  Dutch  and  of  the  Middle 
Ages !  The  very  house  is  of  an  awful  anti 
quity.  I  find  that  the  hochehrende  Gesell- 
schaft  occupied  it  in  1573.  ...  Well,  now 
you  know  the  circumstances  1 11  begin.  Henry 
must  have  informed  you  of  my  travels  in  dif 
ferent  countries  and  of  my  visiting  several 
small  towns  in  Frankreich  and  Welshland  — 
how  I  honoured  the  Pope  by  going  to  mass 
when  he  was  there,  etc.  Since  which  time  I 
have  floated  in  gondolas,  lounged  in  cafes  and 
seen  operas  at  La  Scala  in  Milan.  Then  I 


74   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

went  "  ober  de  mountain  "  in  the  Alps,  an  ad 
venture  which  several  tough  Swiss  have  since 
wondered  at,  and  under  the  circumstances  it 
was  deemed  dangerous  —  only  20  feet  of  snow 
at  the  time,  "  with  more  coming."  Well,  at  last 
I  arrived  at  Geneva  —  dull  town  and  only 
relieved  by  the  cigars,  which  were  the  first 
real  Havanas  I  have  found  abroad  in  shops. 
Being  an  American,  I  was  considered  as  un- 
cheatable  and  got  good  ones.  Then  I  went 
to  Lausanne  —  beautiful  exceedingly !  Gothic 
church,  etc.,  view  of  the  Lake,  and  from  Lau 
sanne  to  Berne  —  and  now  you  see ! !  I  am 
travelling  all  alone,  and  have  not  spoken  a 
word  of  English  for  five  or  six  days.  While  in 
Geneva  I  became  acquainted  with  a  certain 
Rosenmund  —  a  Waff enschimdt  —  who  did 
some  small  work  for  me.  He  naturally  liked 
me  as  American  and  said  solemnly  to  me, 
"  When  you  go  to  Berne  —  go  to  the  Pfistern- 
Zunftr  I  did  so.  Do  you  know  what  a  Zunft 
is  ?  In  the  Middle  Ages  there  were  certain 
guilds  or  corporations  formed  which  received 
all  strangers  of  a  similar  trade  —  for  instance, 
the  Baker  Guild  received  travelling  bakers. 
As  the  bourgeois  got  the  upper  hand,  these 
institutions  became  aristocratic  and  noblemen 


HEIDELBERG  75 

joined  them.  In  Berne  they  still  exist,  but 
have  so  far  changed  as  to  receive  anybody. 
Still,  they  are  very  different  from  hotels.  The 
next  room  to  mine  is  the  Hall,  a  most  antique 
apartment  where  the  Guild,  or  Zunft,  has 
held  its  sittings  for  several  centuries.  There 
is  a  tremendous  smell  of  stale  tobacco  smoke 
pervading  said  room,  as  you  may  imagine.  On 
one  side  hangs  a  noble,  cavalier-looking  por 
trait  of  an  old  burgher,  which  is  as  old  as  the 
society,  and  a  curious  clock,  etc.,  make  me 
feel  as  if  I  were  reading  Washington  Irving's 
accounts  of  the  Old  Dutch  burgmeisters.  I 
always  lounge  in  it  (the  room),  and  amuse 
myself  by  imagining  the  speeches  and  pala 
vers  which  have  been  going  on.  Berne  is  a 
noble  old  town.  Every  house,  like  Bologna, 
has  an  arcade  where  our  front  parlour  would 
be,  or  a  sort  of  portico,  over  which  the  upper 
stories  project,  which  consequently  forms  a 
covered  walk.  But  such  immense  massy  pil 
lars  as  support  them !  so  squat  and  stumpy 
looking,  as  if  they  all  said,  "  Hier  bin  ich  und 
hierwillich  bleiben?  The  whole  town  is  built 
"  jiss  so."  Around  are  very  fine  walks  com 
manding  such  scenes  as  you  see  in  annuals. 
The  houses  have  immense  projecting  roofs. 


76   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

At  every  turn  you  find  a  fountain  —  very  an 
cient  —  and  everywhere,  on  post,  pillar,  foun 
tain  and  house  you  see  painted,  sculptured,  or 
moulded  —  the  Bear  of  Berne.  The  Bear  is 
a  great  man  here.  He  is  on  the  money  —  the 
butter.  The  famed  town  clock,  manufactured 
A.  D.  13 — ,  is  a  perfect  complication  of  bears, 
which  ride  in  at  one  hole  and  out  at  the 
"  t'  other."  A  fountain  represents  Bear  armed 
like  a  knight  —  while  I  amused  myself  this 
afternoon  by  watching  two  live  Bruins  kept 
in  a  "  Baargraben  "  just  near  the  "  Aarburg 
Thor." 

As  a  curious  fact,  I  will  mention  that  the 
natives  here  think  that  I  speak  beautiful 
pure  German,  and  well  they  may,  as  far  as 
pronunciation  is  concerned.  They  do  pro 
nounce  German  here  in  the  worst  manner 
imaginable.  I  have  had  this  evening  a  long 
talk  with  the  Herr  Wirth's  tochterlein  —  she 
calls  "  allein  "  "  allene,"  etc.  As  long  as  I  am 
not  out  for  a  word,  they  do  not  know  but  what 
I  am  talking  as  good  German  as  themselves. 
I  find  it  to  be  true,  what  I  have  often  sus 
pected,  that  if  a  man  talks  German  at  all,  he 
will  always  find  some  Germans  who  talk  it 
worse,  and  they  talk  it  ten  times  better  here 


HEIDELBERG  77 

than  in  some  other  districts.  I  have  heard  a 
patois  (half  Italian)  in  which  German  words 
ending  like  Italian  occurred !  This  was  in 
Simplon. 

In  Italy  the  Rye  had  had  no  more  definite 
object  than  to  see  all  there  was  to  be  seen.  In 
Germany  he  meant  to  work.  For  the  Ameri 
can  student  to  take  a  post  graduate  course  on 
the  Continent  was  not  uncommon.  Motley  at 
Gottingen  and  Berlin,  Holmes  at  Paris,  Long 
fellow  at  Heidelberg,  were  no  mere  excep 
tions.  The  young  Princeton  graduate  wanted 
not  to  follow  any  special  course,  but  to  profit 
by  the  atmosphere  and  influence  of  a  college 
more  liberal  than  his  own,  and,  his  father 
leaving  him  free  to  make  his  plans,  he  decided 
upon  Heidelberg.  Howitt's  "  Student  Life 
in  Germany,"  he  says,  helped  him  to  this 
decision.  Heidelberg  was  then  probably  the 
best  known  of  all  the  German  universities, 
thanks  to  its  popularity  in  romance,  and  the 
town  was  one  of  the  most  picturesque  in  the 
country,  though  another  young  enthusiast 
fresh  to  Europe,  W.  W.  Story,  was  to  be  bit 
terly  disappointed  in  this  picturesqueness 
only  three  years  later.  To  the  Rye,  the  seeker 


78   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

after  the  marvellous,  everything  was  a  sepa 
rate  marvel  —  town  and  university  both  ;  his 
own  blunders ;  the  Herr  Gottsdonnerwetter  of 
the  beadle ;  the  welcome  given  him  by  the 
American  students,  and  the  fact  that  there 
were  Americans  to  welcome  him ;  the  beer 
he  drank  after  his  first  dinner,  twelve  sctioppen 
without  a  tremor,  as  if  already  seized  with  the 
terrible  thirst  the  brave  Von  Rodenstein  be 
queathed  to  the  students  of  Heidelberg;  the 
Grand  Duke  of  Baden  knocking  at  his  door ; 

—  anything  and  everything  in  the  first  be 
wildering  excitement  of  it  all.    And,  more 
marvellous,  he  never  got  over  his  astonish 
ment  at  himself  and  his  sudden  transforma 
tion.  This  was ;  the  real  secret  of  his  genius, 

—  that  he  should  be  able  to  see  what  was 
strange,  or  queer, , or  "  rum  "  in  a  situation, 
and  not  be  ashamed  to  say  he  saw  it,  even  if 
he  was  the  hero.    Triumph  rings  in  his  con 
fession,  at  this  point,  that  people  who  entered 
into  his  daily  life  were  tempted  to  believe  his 
guardian  angel,  if  he  had  one,  must  be  Poe's 
Angel  of  the  Odd. 

The  great  thing  Heidelberg  did  for  him 
was  to  teach  him  how  to  play.  He  worked 
hard  enough  to  satisfy  the  strictest.  It  may 


HEIDELBERG  79 

be  a  comfort  to  those  to  whom  a  foreign 
language  is  a  puzzle  without  a  clue,  to  know 
that  the  man  who  was  to  rival  Borrow  as  La- 
vengro  learned  German  only  by  "  incredible 
labour."  Once  it  was  mastered,  he  attended 
Mittermaier's  lectures  on  history,  Gmelin's 
and  Posselt's  on  chemistry,  and  he  read  the 
literature  of  the  country  with  his  usual  im 
petuosity  until  he  gained  the  familiarity  re 
vealed  as  plainly  in  his  original  work  as  in 
his  translations.  He  would  have  studied  and 
read  anywhere,  however,  and  under  any  con 
ditions.  Whether  he  would  have  played,  if 
left  to  himself,  is  another  question :  there  was 
more  Puritan  in  his  blood  than  Huguenot  or 
"  High  German."  But  Heidelberg  put  him 
in  the  right  way,  and  his  promptness  to  follow 
it  surprised  himself.  "  And  here  I  may  say 
once  for  all,"  he  writes  in  the  "  Memoirs,"  the 
surprise  not  yet  outlived,  "  having  discovered 
that,  if  I  had  no  gift  for  mathematics,  I  had 
a  great  natural  talent  for  Rheinwein  and 
lager,  I  did  not  bury  that  talent  in  a  napkin, 
but  like  the  rest  of  my  friends,  made  the  most 
of  it  during  two  semesters  in  Heidelberg 
.  .  .  the  result  of  which  '  dire  deboshing '  was 
that,  having  come  to  Europe  with  a  soul  lit- 


8o   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

erally  attenuated  and  starved  for  want  of  the 
ordinary  gaiety  and  amusement  which  all 
youth  requires,  my  life  in  Princeton  having 
been  one  continued  strain  of  a  sobriety  which 
continually  sank  into  subdued  melancholy, 
and  a.  body  just  ready  to  yield  to  consump 
tion,  I  grew  vigorous  and  healthy,  or,  as  the 
saying  is,  *  hearty  as  a  buck. ' : 

At  its  worst,  this  terrible  "  debauchery " 
meant  the  consumption  of  beer,  —  "whole 
butts  of  beer,"  —  without  which  play  or  study 
or  existence  is  an  impossibility  to  any  Ger 
man,  —  no  debauchery  at  all,  some  students 
might  protest  in  scorn.  But  accustomed  to  a 
sterner  standard, as  he  was,  the  simplest  events 
of  Heidelberg  daily  life  savoured  of  dissipa 
tion.  He  found  it  in  the  table  cChbte,  first  at 
the  Court  of  Holland,  the  inn  all  the  world  — 
at  least  all  the  student  world  —  knows  in  the 
song  of  Scheffel,  and  then  at  the  Black  Ea 
gle,  unsung  but  as  deserving  of  fame  in  his 
eyes.  There  was  adventure  in  the  mere  talk 
with  people  dining  there:  for  one,  the  old 
German  poetess  to  whom  Heine  had  ad 
dressed  his  epigrams ;  for  another,  "  an  elderly 
and  very  pleasant  Englishman,"  who  turned 
out  to  be  Captain  Medwin,  telling  stories, 


HEIDELBERG  8l 

not  yet  everybody's  property,  of  Byron,  and 
Shelley,  and  Trelawney.  He  found  it  again 
in  the  evenings  at  the  Bremer-Eck,  in  com 
pany  with  none  so  well  remembered  as  a 
young  Englishman,  Ewen  P.  Colquhoun, 
who  was  to  remain  his  friend  for  life,  and 
Scheffel,  whose  "  Gaudeamus  "  and  "  Heidel 
berg  Days,"  when  written,  he  was  to  trans 
late.  Gayer  still  were  the  more  occasional 
events, — the  masked  balls,  ceremonious  in 
Heidelberg,  and  anything  else  "over  the 
river,"  the  great  university  functions,  the  of 
ficial  receptions,  and  reunions.  But  gayest 
and  best  of  all  were  the  holidays,  when,  a  few 
necessities  thrust  into  a  knapsack,  with  a  few 
chosen  companions  he  tramped  through  the 
pleasant  land  of  vine  and  song,  to  Johannis- 
berg,  to  Mainz,  to  Baden,  to  Frankfurt  —  to 
hear  Jenny  Lind  sing,  perhaps,  and  a  few 
miles  further  to  Homburg,  to  get  the  money 
to  pay  for  it.  "  Now  there  is  no  more  gam 
bling,  and  no  loose  fish  (to  speak  of),  and  all  is 
very  proper  and  decent,"  he  wrote  to  Miss 
Owen  from  Homburg  in  1890,  —  "but  when 
I  looked  at  that  same  old  roulette  wheel  yes 
terday  in  the  Museum,  I  sighed  and  wished 
for  the  dear,  good,  bad,  horrid,  awful  old 


82   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

times.  Anyhow,  it  was  jollier  then  —  if  not 
quite  so  moral."  And  there  were  other  tramps 
up  the  Neckar  to  the  Weibertreue. 

"  Who  can  tell  me  where  Weinsberg  lies  ? " 
his  mother  had  recited  to  him  in  his  boy 
hood.  And  now,  forever  after,  he  was  to  re 
member  it  for  its  new  associations,  for  the 
meeting  with  Korner,  the  mystic,  the  poet,  the 
man  of  all  men  he  then  wished  to  meet.  He 
could  never  make  up  his  mind  whether  Kor 
ner,  seen  in  the  flesh,  was  most  stupendous 
and  unbelievable  when  he  was  "  drawing  airs  of 
exquisite  beauty  from  the  jew's-harp,"  or  when, 
up  in  the  ruins  of  the  castle,  he  was  pointing 
out  David  Strauss,  "  the  very  incarnation  of 
all  that  was  sober,  rational,  and  undream- 
like,  walking  along  the  road  below." 

It  is  provoking  that,  though  the  Rye  kept 
the  letters  written  to  him  at  this  time,  so  many 
of  his  from  Heidelberg  have  disappeared,  pro 
bably  in  newspaper  offices.  They  were  "  all 
that  one  could  wish,"  they  were  "  Howitt  all 
over,  through  and  through,"  Henry  assured 
him  in  answering  them.  But,  while  I  have 
enough  letters  from  Henry  Leland  to  make  a 
small  book,  from  the  Rye  at  Heidelberg  I 
can  give  only  two  or  three.  These  few,  how- 


HEIDELBERG  83 

ever,  are  full  of  the  spirit  of  the  German  uni 
versity  and  his  own  joy  in  it.  There  are  hints 
too  of  his  increasing  perplexity  over  the  choice 
of  a  profession.  At  Heidelberg  he  actually 
thought  of  turning  chemist,  as  at  Munich  he 
was  to  have  some  idea  of  the  church:  it  never 
seemed  to  occur  to  him  or  his  family  that 
literature  or  journalism  might  be  a  profession 
in  itself. 


CHARLES    GODFREY    LELAND    TO    CHARLES    LELAND 

HEIDELBERG  UNIVERSITY,  July  5,  1846. 

DEAR  FATHER, —  I  have  just  received  yours 
of  the  seventh  ult,  after  finishing  a  letter  to 
Henry.  With  it,  I  also  received  Henry's  and 
Mother's  of  the  i4th.  Dear  Father — how 
can  I  ever  sufficiently  thank  you  for  your 
kindness?  You  are  indeed  a  good  Father, 
your  letter  brought  tears  to  my  eyes.  My 
health  is  perfect.  I  consider  it  as  thoroughly 
established.  Since  I  have  been  in  Europe,  I 
have  only  been  sick  three  days;  said  sickness 
was  brought  on  by  travelling  from  Naples 
to  Rome,  resulting  entirely  from  over  exer 
tion.  You  would  hardly  know  me  now,  I  am 
so  strong.  I  have  walked  twenty  miles  a  day 


84   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

recently  with  a  knapsack  weighing  twenty 
pounds,  and  can  eat  or  drink  anything.  My 
companions,  five  strong  young  men,  all  de 
clined  wrestling  with  me  !  I  exercise  a  great 
deal  and  at  this  instant  have  just  come  from  a 
long  walk.  The  German  plan  is  to  drink  weak 
beer  and  exercise ;  the  beer,  they  say,  all  turns 
to  nutriment,  and  is  about  as  strong  as  spruce 
beer  in  America.  I  used  to  think  it  not  so,  but 
am  convinced  that  the  Germans  are  right,  so 
long  as  they  limit  the  beer  and  do  not  limit 
the  exercise.  One  has  to  keep  good  hours  in 
a  country  where,  at  9  o'clock,  every  shop  is 
closed,  and  by  10  the  streets  almost  empty. 
Dinner  always  at  one,  which  is  the  fashionable 
hour ;  among  the  lower  classes  at  12.  I  hope 
to  hear  good  accounts  of  your  health.  Now 
that  I  am  abroad,  I  hate  to  lose  a  minute  by 
sickness.  Here  in  Europe  there  is  no  occa 
sion  to  be  unemployed.  Every  little  place  is 
filled  with  attractions.  Even  here,  in  Heidel 
berg,  there  are  curiosities  enough  to  employ 
one  for  a  week.  I  am  getting  along  grandly 
in  German,  and  do  not  neglect  my  Italian ; 
as  for  French  it  seemed  in  Italy  my  proper 
language,  not  but  that  I  speak  it  ungram 
matically.  But  that,  I  shall  never  be  cured  of. 


HEIDELBERG  85 

I  board  in  a  good,  common-sense  German 
professor's  family,  where  we  get  roast  meat 
(with  cherry  sauce),  pancakes,  cutlets,  and 
salad  all  together,  eat  soup  without  salt,  and 
Rhine  wine  on  raspberries.  Every  country 
has  its  ways,  and  a  man  shews  his  head  by 
conforming  to  them,  and  not,  like  many  trav 
ellers,  making  a  fuss  because  things  are  not 
as  they  want  them.  I  can  put  up  with  any 
thing,  but  like  to  get  things  good  when  I  can. 
After  fleas  and  garlic  in  Italy,  everything 
seems  good  in  Germany.  Remember  me  to 
all  our  friends.  If  you  could  give  me  any 
hints  about  studying  things  which  would  be 
useful  to  me  when  I  go  into  business,  I  would 
be  very  grateful.  With  many  thanks  I  remain, 
Your  affectionate  son, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 


CHARLES    GODFREY    LELAND    TO    WILLIAM    TIFFANY 

HEIDELBERG  UNIVERSITY,  July  24,  1846. 

DEAR  TIFFANY,  —  I  'm  down  on  you !  Out 
of  your  chair,  you  venerable  reprobate  —  start 
—  run  —  bolt !  Here  is  a  letter  for  you  from 
Germany  —  out  of  the  very  heart  and  core 
of  it.  And,  at  last,  I  am  a  German  student. 


86   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

[The  curious  reader  may  consult  the  Heidel 
berg  catalogue  for  the  year  1846,  p.  18,  where 
it  appears  that  Carl  Leland  of  America  is 
a  studiosus  philosophiae,  in  said  University.] 
There  's  schwein  for  you,  or  luck.  A  German 
university  is  very  much  such  a  place  as  one 
supposes  it  to  be.  Here,  in  a  small  town,  are 
932  students,  differently  arrayed  in  different 
coloured  caps,  short  coats,  long  hair  (not  so 
common  as  formerly),  pipes  and  corps  bands. 
These  young  men  fight  about  four  duels, 
more  or  less,  daily,  and  average  each  from  1 8 
to  30  schoppens  of  beer  daily.  But,  since  I 
wrote  you  last,  I  have  seen  not  a  little  of  Ger 
many  and  Germanism.  I  had  my  first  taste 
of  it  in  Switzerland,  and,  while  in  Berne,  wrote 
you  a  long  letter  which  I  did  not  have  time 
to  finish,  and  travelling  afterwards  put  it  quite 
out  of  my  head.  Well,  my  dear  fellow,  I  sleep 
on  short  beds  or,  rather,  in  little  boxes.  I 
wear  a  student's  costume,  and  drink  beer, 
smoke  pipes,  eat  one  o'clock  dinners  and 
heavy  suppers.  I  visit  old  castles  and  read 
awful  stones  of  bloody  daggers  and  all  man 
ner  of  hexerey.  I  have  fully  got  hold  of  the 
idea  of  Germany.  But  never  let  me  say  Idea 
again.  BEGRIFF,  Begriff,  that  is  the  word. 


HEIDELBERG  87 

I  have  been  all  along  the  Rhine.  I  first 
made  the  tramp  in  company  with  students,  on 
foot,  with  pipe  and  knapsack,  and  returned 
in  steamer.  I  visited  every  old  ruin.  I  went 
all  through  the  Rhine  towns.  I  drank  all  the 
Rhine  wines.  Since  then  I  have  visited  Baden 
Baden,  and  have  been  into  the  heart  of  the 
Suabian  Land !  I  made  an  excursion  from 
Heidelberg  to  Heilbronn  in  company  with 
a  German  student,  and  from  there  went  to 
Weinsberg  and  Lowenberg.  Oh !  What  have 
I  not  seen  —  what  adventures !  What  times ! 
What  men!  What  tobacco!  What  beer!  — 
Here,  in  Heidelberg,  I  have  seen  divers  duels 
—  clash  and  smash !  But,  my  dear  man,  you 
have  no  earthly  conception  of  what  a  people 
the  Dutch  are  for  kneipen.  The  way  they  do 
smoke  and  drink  beer  is  atrocious!  When 
I  get  on  this  subject,  sir,  I  want  to  write  in 
large  —  very  large  —  capitals.  I  know  of  one 
student  who  drinks  forty  schoppens  of  beer 
in  an  evening,  and  a  Heidelberg  schoppen 
holds  exactly  two  American  table  tumblers ! 
This  is  a  fact.  To  drink  half  a  dozen  large 
bottles  is  a  mere  trifle.  As  for  smoking  — 
fudge,  the  thing  is  absurd.  I  could  never  be 
gin  to  tell  how  much  a  high  pressure  Bursch 


88   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

could  not  smoke.  In  this  matter  I  modestly 
hint  that  /  am  not  small. 

But  where  the  mischief  shall  I  begin?  . . . 
You  know  what  a  Kirchweihe  is?  In  some 
beastly  little  dorf,  the  poor  and  happy  peas 
antry  collect  of  a  Sunday  to  buy  things  at  the 
fair  which,  on  such  occasions,  is  established. 
Then  "  the  poor  and  happy  "  go  and  dance  in 
the  next  Wirthshaus  to  the  music  which  they 
find  there.  Occasionally,  the  "  proud  and  vi 
cious  nobles"  (I  mean  students)  intrude  on 
those  scenes  of  festive  mirth,  on  which  occa 
sions  "  the  poor  and  happy  "  behave  in  a  very 
vulgar  and  rustic  manner — unless  the  "  proud 
and  vicious "  should  happen  to  be  in  the 
majority.  I  patronise  everything  of  the  kind 
myself,  although  in  America  these  things 
would  be  shocking  vulgar.  However,  as  I 
have  seen  princes,  dukes,  barons,  earls,  counts, 
etc.,  dancing  there,  I  presume  that  an  Ameri 
can  might.  How  well  these  Dutch  waltz  — 
every  dirty  blackguard  and  servant  girl  in 
Germany  can  dance  well.  .  .  . 

Well,  it  is  something  to  be  a  student  here. 
You  need  not  know  even  French  to  become 
one.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  pay  down  five 
dollars,  and  sign  your  name,  and  attend  lee- 


HEIDELBERG  89 

tures.  Then  you  are  a  student,  and  of  all  the 
glorious,  starry  lives,  that  of  a  German  Bursch 
is  the  fastest.  A  good-hearted,  hard-headed, 
thirsty,  bullet-proof,  loud-singing  sort  of  a  fel 
low  is  the  Bursch.  I  was  meant  to  go  to  a 
German  university,  I  believe,  because  I  find 
myself  so  exactly  "set "  here.  Just  right  A 
man,  to  be  a  real  German  student,  need  not 
be  a  rowdy.  He  finds  all  sorts  of  people,  and 
he  gets  the  Begriff 'of  student  life  just  as  well 
in  a  quiet,  gentleman-like  way,  as  I  flatter 
myself  that  I  do,  as  if  he  got  drunk  and  held 
a  Scandal  every  day.  I  find  good,  quiet,  nice 
fellows  here.  I  live  quietly,  read,  write,  smoke 
my  pipe,  and  drink  a  little  beer.  You  ask  if  I 
have  got  Minnesangers.  A  grand  collection 
have  I  of  the  old  Deutsch  poetry. 

One  singular  thing  in  the  German  stu 
dents  is  the  singular  way  in  which  they  con 
trive  to  combine  deep  reading  and  extensive 
information,  with  their  student  ways.  The 
fact  is,  that  the  fun  does  not  always  stick 
to  the  man.  He  has  months  together  of  hard 
study,  and  during  his  long  vacations  he  al 
ways  travels.  I  have  known  students  to  go  to 
Arabia,  Egypt,  and  Asia  Minor,  and  come 
back  to  their  studies!!  One  went  lately  to 


9o   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

America  during  vacation !  And  they  visit 
every  part  of  the  Continent.  I  think  that  I 
have  never  met  a  German  student  who  had 
not  travelled.  I  know  two  personally  who  are 
going  to  Italy,  and  as  for  Switzerland,  'tis 
nothing.  One  told  me  yesterday  that  if  he 
had  200  thalers  (about  $75),  he  would  go  all 
over  Switzerland  and  the  north  of  Italy !  He 
wants  me  to  walk  with  him.  I  don't  think  I 
shall.  Real  good  fellows  with  knowledge  of 
every  sort,  and  who  contrive  to  throw  some 
thing  intellectual  into  all  their  hurrahings, 
are  common  in  German  universities.  .  .  . 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  MRS.  CHARLES  LELAND 

HEIDELBERG,  Oct.  27,  1846. 

DEAR  MOTHER,  —  I  am  still  in  the  German 
University  of  Heidelberg,  and  studying  chem 
istry,  even  as  you  advised  me  in  a  previous 
letter.  I  still  enjoy  good  health,  and  still 
await  with  as  much  eagerness  as  ever  the 
arrival  of  certain  letters  from  America,  from 
Messrs.  Greene  and  Co.,  Paris,  directed  to 
Monsieur  Charles  Leland,  Poste  Restante, 
Heidelberg.  And  I  am  sure  if  you  knew 
how  gladly  I  pounce  upon  them,  you  would 
think  I  deserved  as  long  ones  as  I  send.  I 


HEIDELBERG  91 

am  much  pleased  with  your  letters,  although 
I  think  that,  generally,  all  of  my  letters  from 
home,  Mcllvaine's  and  Wm.  Tiffany's  ex- 
cepted,  are  very  deficient  in  that  personal  and 
verbal  description  of  friends  which  is  highly 
interesting.  I  like  the  girls'  letters,  for  I 
think  that  they  will  write  well  in  time.  But 
nothing  so  convinces  me  that  the  long  time 
I  have  been  away  is  making  you  forget  me, 
as  the  letters  I  receive.  Now,  here  am  I, 
with  a  great  deal  to  do,  writing  long  letters  to 
each  one.  Now,  certainly,  each  one  ought  to 
write  to  me,  and  this  is  an  affair  which,  cer 
tainly,  admits  of  no  excuse.  I  never  heard  of 
any  lover  who  could  not  find  tiirfe  to  pen  his 
billets  doux,  even  if  he  was  busy  26  hours  in 
the  24,  and  brothers  and  sisters  ought  cer 
tainly  to  do  as  much,  for  I  can  find  many  a 
lady  love  in  this  life,  but  only  one  brother  and 
three  sisters.  The  only  earthly  excuse  is  the 
postage,  and  that  is  easily  remedied.  Paper 
a  little  lighter  —  writing  a  little  closer  —  and 
the  affair  is  arranged.  This  is  principally  for 
Henry.  His  last  letter  was  pretty  long,  and 
desperate  hard  work  he  had,  I  imagine. 

Well,  how  are  all  our  friends  ?    Poor  Sam ! 
[Godfrey].     Henry    merely    mentioned    his 


92   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

death !  But  I  really  cannot  speak  of  it.  So 
Mary  Laurence  is  to  be  married  ?  I  suppose 
that  everybody  will  be  matched  and  paired 
off  before  I  get  home.  Remember  me  to  her, 
and  her  mother,  and  Mrs.  Hale  and  daugh 
ter,  and  Mrs.  Stewart,  and  Mrs.  Newman,  and 
everybody,  very  particularly,  that  I  ever  de 
sired  to  be  remembered  to.  If  you  can  get 
a  chance,  tell  Mr.  Furness  that  I  remained 
the  first  six  months  in  a  German  university 
as  a  student  of  philosophy,  and  have  turned 
off  into  the  "  exact  sciences,"  or  natural  phi 
losophy  —  i.  e.  chemistry.  How  Professor 
Henry's  heart  will  dance  with  joy  when  he 
hears  it!  That  ever  it  should  have  happened ! 
Get  me  letters  for  Berlin,  for  I  must  go 
there  before  I  leave  Germany.  You  must  read 
my  letter  to  Father.  I  had  a  talk  with  a  great 
German  poetess  a  day  or  two  ago  —  named, 
I  think,  Chezy.  She  had  been  very  intimate 
with  Mad.  de  Stael  and  told  me  about  her. 
It  is  said  that  she  has  been  well  acquainted 
with  most  of  the  great  people  in  Europe,  as 
she  is  highly  talented,  and  was  lady  of  honour 
to  the  Queen  or  Princess  of  Wurtemburg. 
Through  her  I  was  introduced  to  the  Baron 
Hohenhausen,a  real  old  aristocrat,  who  passes 


HEIDELBERG  93 

his  life  in  raking  up  things  relating  to  his 
family,  which  I  believe  dates  from  Noah.  Also 
to  an  old  German  professor  of  antiquities,  on 
whose  heart  I  made  such  a  strong  impression 
by  my  knowledge  of  Middle  Age  things,  that 
he  kept  calling  me  the  Herr  Baron,  conclud 
ing  of  course  that  none  but  a  nobleman  of 
at  least  twenty  quarterings  could  know  so 
much  about  such  things.  And  he  concluded 
by  begging  me  to  come  and  see  him,  —  so 
things  go.  But  for  all  this,  I  want  some 
letters  of  introduction  to  somebody,  for  a 
young  man  who  depends  solely  upon  "  run 
ning  his  face"  has  after  all  no  real  claim 
upon  anybody.  It  is  strange,  but  I  have 
uniformly  found  most  attention  from  those 
I  least  expected  it  from.  As  in  Florence, 
where  a  Mr.  Reynolds  was  very  kind  to  me, 
while  some,  such  as  Waller,  hardly  noticed 
me.  I  find  that  it  is  a  good  way  to  do  the 
honours  of  Heidelberg,  as  much  as  I  can,  to 
all  Americans.  The  great  difference  between 
Americans  and  English  travelling  abroad  lies 
in  this  (I  ought  to  confine  it  to  the  young 
men),  that  the  Americans  all  get  together 
and  keep  the  run  of  one  another  in  such  a 
manner  that,  when  they  do  meet,  they  are 


94   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

acquainted  at  once.    For  example,  there  is 

one  in  Berlin,  G ,  whom  I  have  never 

seen,  yet  we  have  heard  of  one  another.  And 
so  with  many  others. 

y*  past  12.  I  am  just  from  laboratory  and 
lecture,  and  think  that  chemistry  would  be  a 
nicer  study  if  all  its  unpleasant  fumes  could 
be  taken  away.  The  weather  here  is  settled, 
cool  and  cloudy,  —  if  it  can  interest  you  to 
know  anything  about  the  weather  in  a  place 
4000  miles  off.  I  regret  extremely  that  the 
steamer  now  sails  only  once  a  month,  and,  as 
I  before  remarked,  I  trust  that  you  will  make 
it  up  by  extra  letters.  It  has  always  struck  me 
as  strange  that  the  industrious  ones  in  Phila 
delphia  seldom  or  never  write  and  never 
know  any  news,  while  I,  with  no  particular 
claims  to  industry,  write  letters  long  enough 
to  satisfy  the  most  rapacious.  But  my  pa 
tience  will  not  last  for  ever,  although  I  must 
say  that  I  feel  ashamed  of  the  thought  of 
sending  a  short,  dull,  flat  letter  across  Ger 
many,  France,  England,  and  the  Atlantic ! 
.  .  .  Give  my  best  love  to  Father,  Henry  and 
Sisters,  and  believe  me  to  be 

Your  affectionate  son, 

CHARLES. 


CHAPTER   IV 

MUNICH 

THE  longest  tramp  from  Heidelberg  took  the 
Rye  to  Munich.  This  was  in  1847.  Munich 
was  a  town  he  had  greatly  desired  to  visit  "  in 
order  to  study  art  and  to  investigate  funda 
mentally  the  wonderful  and  mysterious  science 
of  aesthetics,  of  which  I  had  heard  so  much." 
He  settled  down  there.  The  life  was  the  same 
as  at  Heidelberg,  full  of  the  same  hard  work 
and  the  same  hard  play ;  only  the  back 
ground  had  shifted.  The  lectures  on  aes 
thetics  were  by  Professor  Friedrich  Thiersch 
—  Heine's  "  dear  and  noble-hearted  friend 
Thiersch"  —  and  he  supplemented  them  by 
study  in  the  Pinacothek  and  Glyptothek. 
He  attended  also  the  lectures  on  modern 
history  by  Professor  Karl  Friedrich  Neu 
mann,  whose  work  on  the  visit  of  Chinese 
monks  to  Fusang,  or  Mexico,  in  the  fifth 
century  the  student  translated  into  Eng 
lish  ;  and  Professor  Beckers 's  on  Schelling, 
and  it  was  in  the  course  of  these  that  he  was 


96   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

overtaken  by  the  greatest  surprise  yet.  For 
as  he  listened  to  Beckers,  he  began  to  realise 
that  his  old  gods  were  tumbling.  He  began 
to  see  that  the  psychological  systems  and 
theories  he  had  evolved  from  his  reading 
at  home  and  Princeton  "  were  all  only  very 
ingenious  shufflings  and  combinations  and 
phases  of  the  same  old  cards  of  Pantheism, 
which  could  be  made  into  Theism,  Pietism, 
Atheism,  or  Materialism,  to  suit  any  taste. 
I  was  advancing  rapidly  to  pure  science, 
though  Evolution  was  as  yet  unknown  by 
the  name,  albeit  the  Okenites  and  others 
with  their  Natur-Philosophie  were  coming 
closely  to  it."  Disillusion  was  inevitable, 
sooner  or  later,  to  him  as  to  so  many  young 
thinkers  in  the  forties.  At  Princeton,  it 
might  have  led  to  despair.  But  there  was  no 
despair  in  the  free  air  of  Munich. 

Marvels  fill  his  description  of  student  life 
at  Munich  as  at  Heidelberg,  and,  again,  inter 
esting  people  figure  in  his  reminiscences :  a 
son-in-law  of  Jean  Paul  Richter  with  whom 
he  often  dined ;  Taglioni,  who  danced  on 
the  Munich  stage ;  Lola  Montez,  the  king's 
favourite  of  the  day,  cordially  hated  by  all 
Munich  for  an  interference  in  public  affairs 


MUNICH  97 

hardly  to  be  expected  from  the  "  very  small, 
pale,  and  thin  or  frele  little  person,  with  beau 
tiful  blue  eyes  and  curly  black  hair,"  who  flits 
across  the  pages  of  the  "  Memoirs."  "  And 
so,  with  study  and  art  and  friends,  and  much 
terrible  drinking  of  beer  and  smoking  of 
Varinas-Kanaster,  and  roaming  at  times  in 
gay  greenwoods  with  pretty  maids  alway,  and 
music  and  dancing,  the  Munich  semester  came 
to  an  end."  The  remaining  documents  of  his 
student  life  in  Munich  are  an  amusing  little 
silhouette  of  himself  in  student's  cap,  with 
long  hair,  and  the  beginning  of  the  later  great 
beard,  and  also  several  letters. 


CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO   MRS.    CHARLES   LELAND 

MUNICH,  April  i,  1847. 

DEAR,  DEAR  MOTHER,  —  I  beg  any  amount 
of  pardons  for  neglecting  you  so  much,  but 
I  really  feel  when  I  have  written  home  that  I 
have  sent  a  letter  to  everybody.  My  health 
is  still  good  —  and  I  am  as  happy  as  ever. 
How  foolish  it  is  to  think  that  there  is  no  real 
enjoyment  in  this  world  !  With  health,  enthu 
siasm,  and  youth,  and  some  information,  one 
can  be  really  content.  In  Heidelberg  I  was 


98   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

never  weary ;  what  between  reading,  and  chem 
istry,  and  waltzing,  smoking  and  the  thousand 
peculiarities  of  German  studentism,  I  passed 
my  time  very  pleasantly.  I  am  more  attached 
to  Germany  than  ever.  I  really  believe  I  am 
a  German,  although  my  French  and  Italian 
experiences  have  left  their  traces  on  me. 
For  two  weeks  I  have  only  spoken  English 
two  or  three  times.  I  live  at  present  in  a  very 
delightful  city,  filled  with  picture  galleries 
and  beautiful  buildings.  As  a  student,  I  have 
acquaintances  everywhere  —  for  German  stu 
dents  are  almost  like  Freemasons,  and  are 
always  together  —  I  arrived  here  a  perfect 
stranger,  with  one  letter  of  introduction,  to  a 
gentleman  who  desired  me,  through  his  ser 
vant,  to  call  the  next  day,  which  polite  request 
I  neglected  of  course.  I  looked  round  town, 
found  students,  and  before  two  days  had 
plenty  of  acquaintances.  .  .  . 

This  city  is  Catholic  to  the  last  degree  and 
much  more  bigoted  than  Rome.  Lent  is 
now  drawing  to  a  close  and  it  is  really  painful 
to  see  the  effects  of  the  fasting  upon  some  of 
the  poor  creatures.  I  saw  yesterday  a  young 
girl  who  waits  on  us  in  the  cafe,  unable  to  do 
anything,  nearly  in  a  faint.  I  asked  her  if 


MUNICH  99 

she  was  sick.  " Oh,  nein"  (no),  she  said  —  but 
it  was  so  hard  to  go  so  long  without  eating. 
To-day  is  a  regular  fast  —  nobody  eats  any 
thing  except  beer  (a  blunder !).  Now  as  the 
Germans  generally  eat  enough  for  three 
ploughboys,  women,  ladies,  and  all,  and  as 
there  is  none  of  our  sham  delicacy  on  the 
subject  of  eating  as  much  as  one  wants,  you 
can  imagine  how  hard  it  is  for  them.  A  young 
German  lady  will  eat  as  much  before  com 
pany  as  she  wants  —  and  that  is  no  small 
quantity  —  and  here  in  Bavaria  will  drink  a 
quart  of  beer  after  it.  I  was  at  a  ball  this 
winter  (and  a  fine  one  it  was) ;  there  were 
some  of  the  greatest  literary  and  political  men 
in  Germany,  with  their  wives  and  daughters* 
There  was  Welcker  and  Gervinus^vb.vs\  whom 
you  will  find  very  highly  praised  in  Howitt, 
and  who,  at  this  present  political  crisis,  are 
considered  two  of  the  very  first  men  in  Ger 
many,  with  many  others.  Mrs.  Gervinus  is 
one  of  those  wonderful  women,  uniting  beauty, 
talent,  and  a  great  education.  There  were  the 
family  of  Roscoe,  the  great  English  writer, 
etc.  Well,  the  supper  for  this  fine  ball  con 
sisted  principally  of  cold  meat  and  potato 
salad,  with  "  trimmings."  There  were  many 


ioo  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

other  good  things,  but  the  gentlemen  and 
ladies  stuck  to  that  principally  (and  if  they  eat 
one  ounce,  they  eat  two  pounds).  There  was 
good  white  wine,  which  the  young  studenten 
gentlemen  patronised  largely.  After  we  had 
all  waltzed  ourselves  to  pieces,  at  a  late  hour, 
rum  and  hot  water,  for  the  gentlemen,  was  in 
troduced,  and  they  drank,  the  ladies  looking 
on.  Some  of  the  students  did  drink  —  a  little. 
Well,  notwithstanding  all  this,  I  can  assure 
you  that  a  more  refined,  respectable,  decent 
assembly  I  never  saw,  and  a  man  not  accus 
tomed  to  a  high  tone  of  respectability  would 
certainly  not  have  found  himself  at  home 
there.  The  Germans  are  a  very  natural  peo 
ple,  more  so  in  Munich  than  in  any  other 
place.  Everybody  drinks  beer  here  terribly. 
I  heard  a  beautiful  young  lady,  the  daughter 
of  a  King's  secretary,  say  to-day  that  she  had 
had  nothing  all  day  long  to  eat  or  drink  ex 
cept  a  quart  of  it.  Beer  is  better  than  nothing, 
I  suppose.  Well,  I  don't  know  how  it  is  to 
be  done,  but  I  would  like  to  make  you  under 
stand  how  all  this  can  be  united  to  true  re 
finement.  As  for  me,  I  smoke,  eat,  drink,  and 
waltz,  just  like  any  German.  My  health  is 
good  —  but  how  I  dread  to  return  to  our 


MUNICH  ioi 

American  summers  and  winters!  I  am  con 
fident,  that,  had  I  remained  in  America,  I 
should  not  have  lived  long.  When  I  think  of 
some  of  my  sicknesses  and  contrast  them 
with  my  present  splendid  healthiness,  I  think, 
"  Oh,  you  poor  fellow !  " 

Do  you  find  my  letter  badly  written  ?  I 
really  find  some  difficulty  in  writing  English, 
not  having  had  lately  much  practice.  Let  a 
person  not  speak  English  more  than  twice  in 
two  weeks,  and  it  is  astonishing  how  hard  it 
comes  to  speak  it  as  he  should.  I  did  so  lately, 
and  an  English  friend  came  to  Munich,  then 
I  always  kept  speaking  German  to  him !  He 
was  a  friend  in  Heidelberg. 

There  are  some  magnificent  buildings  here. 
Although  I  have  seen  Italy  all  through,  and 
much  of  France  and  Germany,  I  still  can 
admire  the  beautiful  wherever  I  find  it.  Such 
magnificent  churches  are  not  to  be  seen  in 
America.  Almost  everything  here  is  quite 
new.  All  has  been  done  by  King  Ludwig,  who 
spends  all  his  money  in  buying  fine  pictures 
and  building  splendid  edifices.  It  is  here  the 
great  source  of  German  Art!  Here  in  this 
city  are  three  thousand  young  artists !  Nearly 
all  devoted  to  the  revival  of  the  Middle  Ages. 


102  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Good  Friday.  Everybody  is  getting  ready 
—  the  churches  are  full  of  lamps  and  ever 
greens.  Nobody  would  do  any  work  to-day, 
or  to-morrow,  on  any  account.  I  told  a  tailor 
this  morning  that  the  Miinchen  people  were 
more  pious  than  the  Romans.  The  shops  are 
full  of  pieces  of  meat,  every  piece  ornamented 
with  religious  symbols.  I  saw  the  Lamb,  done 
in  sugar,  on  a  ham  with  a  banner  of  the 
Church  sticking  out  from  it  I  wonder  the 
poor  creatures  can  stand  this  starvation.  I 
like  to  go  into  the  Catholic  churches.  You 
can  have  no  idea  of  the  sublime  magnifi 
cence  of  a  Catholic  cathedral.  One  really 
feels  overcome  by  these  beautiful,  melan 
choly,  old  Gothic  piles.  And  then,  it  is 
beautiful  to  see  highborn,  beautiful  ladies 
kneeling  down  by  poor  beggar  women,  all 
in  enthusiastic  prayer.  You  can  see  a  rough, 
savage  fellow  often  kneeling  in  tears  before 
the  Virgin.  If  they  are  wrong,  they  are  at 
least  sincere.  The  Catholics  in  my  humble 
opinion  are  much  abused.  I  never  saw  in 
Rome  anything  to  disgust  me  with  them.  It 
may  be,  that  in  my  passionate  admiration  of 
the  Arts  I  only  see  in  the  Catholic  Church 
a  protector  of  the  Fine  Arts.  In  our  Ger- 


MUNICH  103 

man  philosophy  the  Beautiful  is  one  of  the 
forms  of  God. 

The  German  students  are  all  a  pack  of 
young  heathens  as  far  as  prayer  goes.  One 
who  is  subject  to  external  influences  from 
companions  (I  am  not)  had  better  not  go 
abroad.  But  they  are  very  friendly  indeed.  It 
is  astonishing  how  much  they  know.  I  verily 
believe  that,  in  all  Heidelberg,  there  is  not  a 
rowdy,  beer-drinking  Bursch  who  is  not  better 
qualified  to  be  a  professor  of  Greek,  or  Latin, 
in  Princeton,  than  either  of  the  respected 
gentlemen  who  occupy  those  places.  I  was  in 
company  with  five  the  other  day,  each  one 
of  whom  understood  four  languages  and  had 
each  fought  about  as  many  duels.  I  have  just 
received  a  visit  from  a  young  Bursch  in  long 
hair,  short  black  coat  covered  with  braid,  and 
broad  Byron  collar.  He  was  very  friendly, 
inquired  if  I  had  fought  duels  in  Heidelberg, 
and  seemed  to  be  astonished  when  I  told  him 
that  I  did  not  go  loo  with  swords.  He  politely 
invited  me  to  join  his  fighting  club ;  this  is 
the  second  invitation  I  have  had  here.  I  don't 
care  particularly  about  having  my  face  scarred. 
The  duels  are  not  generally  for  anything 
except  to  try  their  skill.  Be  easy  as  to  my 


104  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

duelling  —  nothing  can  induce  me  to  do  any 
such  thing.  I  am  to  be  introduced  by  him  in  a 
few  days  to  a  man  whom  I  almost  worshipped 
in  America,  the  great  German  philosopher 
Schubert.  Henry  and  Geo.  Boker  may  re 
member  how  I  used  to  adore  his  philosophy. 
He  is  a  high-pressure  transcendentalist,  of 
course.  I  copied  off  much  of  his  writings  when 
we  lived  in  Cong.  Hall.  He  is  said  to  be  a 
very  friendly  man.  It  is  amusing  to  find  how 
entirely  different  these  great  German  philoso 
phers  are  from  what  we  imagine.  They  write 
works  too  refined,  too  delicate  for  mere  mor 
tals,  in  which  there  is  nothing  of  this  Earth, 
—  high-pressure,  transcendental,  —  and  they 
may  be  found,  any  of  them  at  any  time,  in  a 
kneip,  drinking  beer,  smoking  pipes,  and  play 
ing  billiards.  All  of  which  proves  to  me  their 
sincerity  in  their  theories.  If  Henry  will  read 
"  Hyperion "  over,  he  will  find  Schubert's 
name  there. 

N.  B.  The  Frau  Himmelauen,  whom  Long 
fellow  abuses  in  his  novel,  was  his  landlady! 
in  that  place.  He  has  not  even  changed  her 
name.  She  is  a  shocking  old  creature.  I 
wonder  if  that  would  be  called  a  poetical 
revenge. 


MUNICH  105 

There  is  an  American  here,  a  studiosus.  I 
am  doing  my  best  to  keep  out  of  his  way.  It  is 
shocking  to  think  how  much  one  must  lose 
on  account  of  this  stupid  clannish  spirit  which 
influences  men  so  much.  If  I  had  never  met 
an  American  or  Englishman  in  Heidelberg,  I 
should  have  saved  money  and  learnt  more.  I 
am  sorry  to  say  that  the  Americans  one  meets 
abroad  are  not,  generally  speaking,  the  most 
creditable  representatives  of  our  country. 
They  are  decent  men,  but  seldom  come  abroad 
with  any  intention  of  informing  themselves, 
and  are  all  fearfully  extravagant.  Well,  my 
wild  days  are  over,  I  am  living  quietly  and 
nicely  here.  I  wish  you  were  here  to  see  to 
my  linen  —  my  clothes  are  pretty  well  up. 
My  American  shirts,  which  have  been  washed 
in  the  Rhone  and  the  Rhine,  the  yellow  Tiber, 
and  the  Brenta,  and  Neckar,  and  forty  other 
streams  more  or  less  clean,  are  beginning  to 
give  way.  So,  dear  Mother,  give  my  love  to 
all.  Kiss  Sisters  and  Father  and  Henry  for 
me,  and  believe  me  to  be  your  affectionate 
son, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND 


106  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  HENRY  PERRY  LELAND 

MUNICH,  April  23,  1847. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  I  've  just  received  your 
letter  of  March  23  and  never  felt  in  all  my 
life  so  completely  pleased  or  satisfied  with  a 
human  being  as  with  you.  Dear  brave  fel 
low  that  you  are !  I  am,  by  Heavens,  lucky 
to  have  a  brother  whom  I  see  will,  when  I 
return,  be  my  most  intimate  friend,  a  thing 
which  happens  seldom  enough  among  gentle 
men  so  allied !  I  am  touched !  grieved  to  hear 
that  you  have  been  sick  —  and  I  mean  it !  All 
my  letters,  say  you,  have  the  appearance  of 
having  been  opened,  and  you  fervently  hope 
that  the  individuals  who  performed  that  duty 
may  be  very  essentially  damned !  Caro  mio, 
don't  suspect  any  American  of  it.  It 's  those 
rascally,  low-lived,  never-to-be-aroused-to-a- 
sense-of-decency  police  officials  in  Paris. 
Greene  has  twice  sent  me  my  letters  cut 
open(^)  and  resealed  with  a  short  inscrip 
tion,  "  The  letter  opened  by  mistake^  but  not 
read."  .  .  . 

Well,  I've  been  dining  for  12  cents;  con 
found  it,  why  can't  I  keep  money  ?  Just  when 
I  want  to  be  economical,  I  have  a  thousand 


MUNICH  107 

demands  on  my  purse.  I  determined  to  live 
cheap  till  the  middle  of  June,  and  must  pay 
out  a  lot  for  lectures.  After  dinner,  went  to 
the  University  and  fixed  my  matriculation. 
There,  thank  God,  the  first  secretary  had 
a  brother  in  America,  and  that  saved  me 
$1.20!  I'll  tell  the  whole  story.  When  you 
go  from  one  German  university  to  another 
you  must  take  a  departure-testimonial.  This 
I  did  not  do  when  I  left,  for  I  intended  to 
go  to  Berlin,  where  I  meant  to  study  with 
out  enrolling  myself  as  a  student.  But  one 
can't  live  with  any  comfort  in  Munich  un 
less  he  is  a  real  student,  so  I  went  to  the  Uni 
versity  Secretary,  told  him  I  had  no  friends 
in  Heidelberg  to  take  out  an  Abgangs  Zeich- 
niss  for  me  (dep.  test.),  so  he  said,  "  I  '11  be 
your  friend  —  we  are  half  related  —  I  've  got 
a  brother  in  America,  so  I  '11  write  to  the 
University  and  get  it  for  you  gratis!"  It's 
something  for  an  American  to  come  here. 
Mighty  few  ever  do,  into  this  nest  of  despot 
ism  and  Roman  Catholicism,  beer  and  aesthet- 
icism.  Don't  let  yourself  be  troubled  about 
anything.  As  the  German  students  say,  "  I 
don't  disturb  my  great  soul  for  that."  .  .  . 
I  am  amused  to  think  that  you  have  read 


io8  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

over  my  early  compositions.  How  do  they 
look  ?  Poor  boy  that  I  was,  who  would  ever 
have  thought,  three  or  four  years  ago,  that 
you,  bright  little  active  devil  that  you  were, 
would  ever  have  turned  out  the  reader,  and 
I  the  Dreamer  have  become  the  Chevalier. 
My  general  beer  name  is  "  the  Chevalier  "  in 
Heidelberg.  And  yet,  after  all,  I  prophesy 
that  you  will  ultimately  become  the  man  of 
the  world,  and  I,  once  more,  the  recluse  — 
the  student.  Now  I'll  open  a  depth  of  my 
own  soul  to  you.  Wherever  I  go,  in  all  sorts 
of  gaiety,  I  am  always  oppressed  with  a  dim, 
mysterious  feeling  that  this  is,  after  all,  but 
for  a  time.  There  are  times  when  I  am  rolled 
back,  as  if  by  a  retreating  surge,  into  the 
depths  of  that  mysterious  Pantheistic  philo 
sophy  which,  when  it  has  once  touched  the 
soul,  influences  it  for  ever  and  ever !  Voices 
seem  to  say,  Thou  art  ours  —  thou  art  ours ; 
and  ever  and  anon  I  fall  back  on  the  philo 
sophy  of  the  Absolute  stronger  than  ever! 
Now  if  I  hope  to  give  my  life  to  literature 
and  philosophy,  I  must  go  into  Divinity.  The 
first  impressions  are  not  readily  worn  away, 
and  I  believe  with  Schiller,  "  Keep  true  to 
the  dream  of  thy  Youth ! "  .  .  . 


MUNICH  109 

Really,  I  am  pleased  to  hear  good  news 
about  the  war.  There  is  a  German  who  keeps 
a  coffee  house  here.  He  was  five  years  in 
America.  I  am  certain  he  has  been  there,  for 
when  he  speaks  English,  every  fifth  word  is 
hell  and  every  tenth  damn.  The  English 
don't  swear  much.  I  have  shaken  off  my 
prejudices  against  every  nation  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  except  Jews  and  English.  N.  B. 
I  did  a  Jew  twice  in  Heidelberg,  and  he  did 
me  twice.  Sum  total,  I  won.  I  bought  the 
meerschaum  of  him,  and  he  afterwards  offered 
me  the  same  sum  for  it.  Read  Longfellow's 
"Poets  of  Europe"  smack  through.  If  you 
can,  read  "Rabelais  " — it  did  me  more  good 
than  almost  any  book  I  ever  read.  Read,  at 
least  twice,  every  line  that  Sterne  ever  wrote. 
I  am  told  that  a  French  book  called  "  Le 
Moyen  de  parvenir,"  is  worth  reading.  If  you 
can  read  Spanish  as  well  as  I  believe  you  can, 
you  will  have  pleasure  probably  in  reading 
"  Queveda"  Read  all  you  can  get  hold  of  of  J. 
P.  Richter.  You  '11  find  "  A  Dream  "  of  Rich- 
ter's  in  an  old  English  magazine  at  home 
which,  if  you  read  very  carefully,  will  repay 
reading!  ...  If  you  expect  to  rise,  you  must 
understand  the  combination  of  Plato,  Dante, 


i  io  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

and  Schelling !  You  need  n't  wait  for  me  to 
talk  to.  I  can  talk  across  the  Atlantic.  I  had 
nobody  to  assist  me  or  enlighten  me  when, 
in  my  sixteenth  year,  I  dug  into  Spinoza  and 
Kant  and  Jacob  Bohme.  Now  I  recommend 
you  to  read  carefully  all  you  can  of  Cousin. 
Begin  with  Henry's  "  Hist,  of  Phil."  And 
when  you  have  got  up  a  little  enthusiasm, 
thank  Heaven  for  it.  I  never  met  a  man 
who  was  up  to  Transcendentalism  who  was  n't 
up  to  almost  anything  literary !  .  .  . 

I  read  my  letter  over,  and  find  much  ad 
vice  and  very  little  description.^  What  shall 
I  describe  ?  A  student  kneip  —  a  lot  of 
rowdy  young  gentlemen  swilling  beer  and 
smoking  pipes  —  a  coffee  house  with  a  fine 
band  of  music  playing  in  an  atmosphere  so 
confoundedly  dense  that  you  'd  faint  in  it  (I 
mean  smoke).  I  staid  till  twelve  o'clock  last 
night  in  such  a  place.  My  last  hour  was  spent 
in  listening  to  a  student  friend's  description 
of  the  beautiful  way  he  'd  arrange  matters  if 
I  should  happen  to  have  a  pistol  duel.  He  's 
a  nice  youth,  has  a  fight  about  once  a  week, 
challenged  a  man  in  a  coffee  house  three 
days  ago,  got  thrashed  like  the  devil  in  a  row 
with  some  Frenchmen,  and  broke  his  stick 


MUNICH  in 

over  a  Philister's  back  about  a  week  since. 
As  he  was  acquainted  with  a  friend  of  the 
next  gendarme,  the  Philister  was  arrested! 
Eh  bien,  il  faut  finir.  Read  —  read.  Keep 
up  your  spirits,  and,  for  the  fiftieth  time,  don't 
disturb  yourself.  .  .  .  Write  a  great  deal  of 
poetry.  It  won't  hurt  you.  I  never  like  to  see 
affectation  of  any  sort !  So  drive  on.  God  bless 
you  to  all  time.  Write  finer  in  your  next. 

CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO   MRS.    CHARLES    LELAND 

MUNCHEN,  May  8. 

LIEBE  FRAU  GUTTER! 

MY  OWN  DEAR  MOTHER,  —  You  have  long 
before  this  received  some  letters  from  me,  and 
I  have  taken  the  resolution  to  write  regularly 
to  you  and  hope  that  the  police,  or  the  old 
Harry,  whoever  it  is,  will  allow  my  letters  to 
get  safely  to  America ;  I  don't  mind  their  be 
ing  opened  and  read,  but  it  is  really  aggravat 
ing  to  have  them  stopped,  and  then  to  have 
the  sweet  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  I  am 
to  be  blamed  for  not  writing.  I  am  a  little 
lazy,  that 's  a  fact.  .  .  . 

You  will  have  read  in  my  letter  to  Mary 
how  annoyed  I  was  at  not  seeing  Mr.  Bliss 


112  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

and  family,  who  passed  through  here.  To-day 
I  am  to  meet  Professor  Beck,  from  Cambridge, 
at  dinner.  The  German  professors  are  queer 
fishes.  The  other  evening  a  professor  of 
mathematics,  a  very  nice  man  and  generally 
very  quiet  man,  got  as  drunk  as  a  fiddler  in  a 
coffee  house  on  about  twenty  tumblers  of  beer. 
He  was  rather  proud  of  it.  I  congratulated 
him  afterwards  on  his  abilities.  In  a  German 
university  the  principle  of  equality  is  well 
developed,  and  the  professors  are  much  more 
respected  by  the  students  than  in  America, 
although  they  are  not  in  the  least  subject 
to  them.  The  police  part  of  the  university 
is  entirely  separated  from  the  Faculty  and, 
for  aught  I  know,  the  professors  may  be  ar 
rested  as  well  as  the  young  gentlemen.  There 
is  a  feeling  of  real  respect  for  the  professors, 
particularly  when  they  are  liberal  in  their 
political  views.  You  see  how  /  write,  and 
I  think  I  hear  you  say,  "  Fine  places  your 
German  universities  where  the  professors  get 
drunk ! "  Yes,  they  are  fine  places  for  study, 
and  for  learning  the  world,  and  everything 
else.  They  are  the  best  places  for  education 
in  the  whole  world,  and  if  some  of  our  Amer 
ican  students  could  acquire  as  honourable, 


MUNICH  113 

gentleman-like  a  tone  as  I  find  among  the 
Germans,  it  would  be  better  for  them.  I  am 
busy  this  semester  studying  everything  that 
pleases  me  and  I  must  say  that  I  am  per 
fectly  contented.  I  am  not  yet  so  old  that  I 
need  consider  the  loss  of  one  year  as  much, 
since  I  am  acquiring  a  fund  of  knowledge 
worth  more  than  two  fortunes.  I  seem  to 
myself  to  be  ten  years  older  than  I  was  when 
I  left  my  native  land.  I  mean  internally,  for  I 
have  not  changed  much  outwardly  —  not  in 
the  least,  I  think.  Well,  dear  Mother,  I  must 
close.  Give  my  love  to  everybody,  particularly 
Father,  and  make  him  a  thousand  excuses 
that  I  have  not  written  to  him  this  time,  as  I 
intended.  I  hope  that  he  has  good  health. 
Kiss  the  girls  all  for  me.  How  I  want  to  see 
Emily  —  my  dear  little  Em.! 

Your  affectionate  son, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 


CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  HENRY  PERRY  LELAND 

MUNCHEN,  May,  1847. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  For  once  I  sit  in  cold  blood 
resolving  to  write  you  a  short  letter.  You 
deserve  a  long  one,  but,  without  affectation 


Ii4  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

and  upon  my  word,  I  have  no  time  to  write 
one,  and  if  you  expect  me  to  write  more  fre 
quently  you  can't  of  course  get  as  much.  Just 
at  present  I  am  very  much  occupied.  Morn 
ing  lectures  on  history,  aesthetik,  philos.,  then 
study  for  five  hours.  I  get  up  at  half  past 
five,  but  just  at  present  am  bedeviled  with 
forty  small  matters  which  must  be  attended 
to.  The  hard  pull  is  lectures  from  seven  to 
ten.  I  get  coffee  before  I  go,  and  when  they 
are  out  feel  just  exactly  in  the  humour  for  a 
big  glass  of  Bavarian  beer  and  a  roll  of  bread. 
Since  my  last,  nothing  very  particular  has 
happened.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Tag- 
lioni  again  night  before  last  in  the  Sylphide ; 
cost,  48  cents,  third  tier  —  there  are  six  alto 
gether.  Taglioni  did  not  seem  to  me  to  dance 
as  well  as  she  did  in  Rome ;  in  fact  I  was  a 
little  astonished  when  I  recollected  the  fas 
cination  with  which  I  first  beheld  her.  But, 
ten  to  one,  I  have  changed  more  than  Taglioni 
in  that  time.  Cerito  comes  here  before  long. 
How  people  talk  about  these  things !  One 
would  suppose  that  Ellsler  and  Taglioni  were 
longpassees — don't  believe  it.  The  Germans 
are  all  yet  of  the  opinion  that  Fanny  Ellsler 
is  the  first  living  danseuse,  and  certainly  Fanny 


MUNICH  115 

Ell.,  Taglioni,  and  Cerito  the  three  first  living. 
Include  Grisi  (not  the  singer). 

My  health  is  good,  and  I  can  really  say 
that  I  never  enjoyed  myself  so  much  in  Ger 
many  (except  perhaps  that  glorious  last  se 
mester  in  Heidelberg).  I  am  studying  now 
exactly  what  I  like,  and  none  of  that  infernal 
chemistry  to  try  soul  and  body  with.  What 
a  little  stinking  Hell  our  laboratory  used  to 
be !  You  see  that  I  am  not  very  choice  in  my 
expressions,  and  to  tell  the  truth,  as  I  never 
swear  in  English  avec  la  langue,  I  must  blow 
a  few  on  paper.  I  can't  begin  to  tell,  of  course, 
how  my  offer  in  my  last  letter  was  received. 
For  fear  that  the  letter  was  n't  received,  I  '11 
repeat  it;  namely,  that  I  will  return  home  as 
soon  as  this  semester  's  over,  if  father  will 
send  you  out  to  Europe,  or  anywhere,  to  show 
you  the  world.  I  really  am  beginning  to  for 
get  English.  I  never  talk  it  and  wish  never 
to  hear  it  spoken,  confound  the  ling  —  no,  I 
must  not  swear  at  my  native  tongue  ! 

I  have  observed  nothing  particularly  new 
of  late.  My  duelling  pistols  are  loaned  out 
for  a  rencontre.  A  Burschenschaft  friend  of 
mine  was  essentially  thrashed  in  a  row  lately 
and  challenged  the  aggressor.  I  hope  he  will 


ii6  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

shoot  him.  Here  one  sees  the  real  unwashed 
Bursch  in  perfection.  In  Heidelberg  the  stu 
dents  all  dressed  very  well.  I  do  not  recollect 
ever  to  have  seen  a  shabby  one  there,  while 
in  Munich  some  students  show  themselves  so 
lost  to  decency  as  to  affect  the  Tyrolese  pea 
sant's  dress,  i.  e.  a  coat  like  a  sack  with  green 
collar ;  and  others  wear  the  gendarme  pan 
taloons,  i.  e.  leather  from  the  knee  down.  Any 
student  who  will  make  himself  like  a  Philister 
of  the  lower  order  is  a  disgrace  to  the  name. 
I  wear  a  hat  now,  a  real  Paris  one  with  a  look 
ing  glass  inside,  a  magnifying  mirror  —  it 
cost  $2.80.  I  would  have  seconded  in  that 
row,  but  I  have  not  the  remotest  idea  of  be 
ing  obligated  to  leave  before  the  session  is 
over.  One  must  go  to  France,  or  Switzerland, 
directly.  I  am  deep  in  books  now.  I  would 
recommend  you  by  all  means  to  go  at  Italian. 
If  you  know  Spanish,  you  will  learn  Italian 
in  three  months,  and  then  read  the  principal 
authors  through.  An  interesting  topic  at 
present  here  is  the  Bock  bier.  During  the 
month  of  May,  in  a  certain  brewery  here  a 
strong  beer  is  brewed  called  the  Bock  or  goat 
beer.  It  is  the  best  beer  in  the  whole  world 
and  has  for  several  centuries  been  annually 


MUNICH  117 

given  out.  It  costs  twice  as  much  as  common 
beer,  that  is,  four  cents  a  double  tumbler  full. 
During  the  time  a  Bock  newspaper  is  pub 
lished  and  the  whole  population  talk  all  the 
time  about  Bock.  .  .  . 

Your  affectionate  brother, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 


CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  HENRY  PERRY  LELAND 

MUNICH,  June  3,  1847. 

DEAR  HARRY,  —  To-day  is  ^festa,  a  regu 
lar  lump  of  laziness.  All  the  principal  streets 
are  lined  with  green  branches,  every  house 
has  three  or  four  young  trees  before  it,  and 
red  and  yellow  flags,  cloths,  and  carpets  hang 
before  all  the  houses.  I  have  n't  seen  any 
thing  to  compare  with  it  since  the  Carnival 
in  Rome.  A  magnificent  procession,  includ 
ing  the  rascal  "  Louis  the  Kind,"  and  the 
Archbishop,  and  all  sorts  of  banners,  incense, 
and  priests,  soldiers,  virgins  with  palms,  etc., 
went  through  the  said  streets  this  morning. 
r  I  saw  it  before  the  Cafe  Hildebrand  in  the 
Kaufinger  Gasse,  and  was  much  pleased. 
Then  I  saw  it  again  in  the  Schrannen  Platz, 
and,  finally  for  a  last  time,  in  the  Ludwig- 


n8  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

strasse.  In  each  place  an  altar  was  erected 
and  mass,  I  believe  (I  am  not  au  fait  in  the 
Catholic  manoeuvres),  performed.  And  the 
crowd,  oh,  mein  lieber  Himmel  !  Kots  blitz, 
donnerwetter,  parapleu,  Himmels  sapper  lot  /  / 
Bauers  and  Philisters,  students  and  the  Devil 
(who  could  n't  have  been  overpleased  with  so 
much  holy  water  and  incense)  only  knows 
what  all !  All  of  the  people  who  felt  inclined 
went  down  on  their  knees  in  the  streets  and 
prayed,  old  women  loafed  around  with  little 
garlands  for  sale,  and  Roman  Catholic  Mu 
nich  had  a  real  good  holiday  after  its  own 
way.  Out  of  Naples  I  know  of  no  city  where 
vice,  bigotry  and  superstition  are  so  much 
at  home.  Oh,  how  jolly  one  does  live  here ! 
The  beer  must  have  been  awfully  punished, 
to  judge  from  the  crowds  standing  around 
the  Bockgarten,  for  this  is  the  last  day  of  the 
famous  Bock  bier,  and  they  were  waiting  for 
it  to  open.  Then  I  dined  and  went  home  to 
my  fourth  storey  in  the  Neuhausen  Gasse. 
Night  before  last  I  went  to  the  Volkstheater, 
where  only  the  real  genuine  German  of  the 
middle  and  lower  classes  is  to  be  seen.  Here 
the  parterre  costs  from  4  to  8  cents,  but,  as  I 
was  rather  shy  of  the  canaille^  I  took  a  place 


MUNICH  119 

in  the  very  first  box  alongside  of  the  stage, 
quite  private  and  aristocratic,  which  cost  75 
cents,  as  the  location  is  separate.  The  play 
was  Die  Todtenglocke  auf  Hollenstein,  or 
"  The  Death  Bell  on  the  Hellstone,"  or  "  The 
White  Lady  and  the  Black  Man."  Awful  hor 
rors  and  gloomy  phantoms  formed  its  sub 
stance;  the  principal  objects  were  knights, 
spectres,  ghosts,  phantoms,  a  burial  vault, 
moonlight  ruin  (I  mean  lightning  lit),  nymphs, 
genii,  a  demon  monk,  considerable  blue  and 
red  fire,  and  a  combat  between  the  Ritter 
Wendelin  and  Walluf  von  Hollenstein.  .  .  . 
Ann  RadclifTe  romances,  boiled  down  and 
concentrated,  were  quite  tame  to  it.  Hurrah 
for  Germany !  the  literary  ones  and  the  de 
cent  ones  have  all  eschewed  the  horrific  in 
literature,  but  the  real  old-fashioned  solid 
German  of  the  lower  order  holds  on  to  it 
like  grim  death,  and  will  hold  on  for  the 
next  hundred  years,  at  least  in  jolly,  German, 
beer-drinking  Bavaria.  Ask  Schmitz  what 
sort  of  people  the  Bavarians  are.  Tell  him 
I  say  that  Prussia  is  a  curse  to  Germany, 
and  I  'm  sorry  he  's  a  Prussian ! !  Your 
meerschaum,  black,  chocolate,  brown,  and 
yellow  and  white,  hangs  up  before  me  —  oh 


120  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

it  is  a  delicious  pipe !  never,  never  have  I 
seen  a  better.  .  .  . 

Now  for  a  word  over  the  MSS.  [Fusang] 
I  propose  sending  with  this.  Don't  delay  and 
fiddle  with  it,  but  take  it  to  Belcher  after 
reading  it  over  and  correcting  it.  Show  him 
what  the  German  professor  says  in  a  note  of 
his  book,  and  get  him  to  sell  it  for  us.  I  give 
you  all  you  can  get  for  it,  and  that  certainly 
ought  to  be  ten  dollars.  A  work  on  such  a 
subject,  and  at  such  a  time,  written  by  a 
celebrated  German  professor  and  translated 
under  his  revision,  ought  to  be  worth  pub 
lishing.  If  Belcher  don't  live  in  Philadelphia, 
take  it  to  Chandler,  get  it  printed  without 
delay,  and  get  as  much  money  as  you  can. 
I  had  no  English  geography  by  me ;  wher 
ever  you  see  a  word  lead-pencilled,  correct  its 
spelling,  for  I  am  rather  slim  in  geography. 
Some  such  words  as  Ochtosk  puzzle  me,  but 
you  can  easily  correct  them,  and  if  you  can't, 
let  them  go,  don  t  give  it  as  an  excuse  for  not 
getting  it  published,  let  it  rather  go,  faults  and 
all.  Tell  me  what  you  think  of  the  work  in 
your  next.  I  think  it  is  very  good.  Neumann 
is  a  man  who  seems  to  know  everything  under 
the  sun.  He  speaks  and  writes  more  languages 


MUNICH  121 

than  I  should  suppose  possible,  and  has 
gone  to  the  bottom  of  metaphysics,  history, 
mathematics,  and  other  matters,  and  has  trav 
elled  the  whole  world  over.  Well,  how  does 
everything  go  with  thee,  dear  brother  ?  Wait- 
est  thou  for  me  ?  Well,  I  'm  a-coming.  Some 
fine  day  you  11  see  me  coming  up  Walnut 
Street  in  a  cab,  with  three  or  four  carpet 
bags,  looking  as  jolly  as  a  German  before  the 
Kneip  shuts  up. 

Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  book  called  "  Les 
malheurs  de  Werther  ? "  ( Werther  was  a  fool, 
celebrated  in  Germany.)  Don't  play  his  role. 
—  I  am  summoned  —  I  must  appear  before 
the  police  to-morrow  —  I  don't  know  what 
for.  Maybe  I  'm  to  be  ordered  home  as  a  sus 
picious  subject  because  I  can't  eat  liverwurst. 
As  for  cheap  living,  I  get,  in  a  nice  room 
with  good  attendance,  every  day,  soup,  boiled 
beef  with  sauce  or  salad,  vegetables,  with  a 
sausage  or  two,  roast  meat  and  pie,  for  twelve 
cents,  or  eighteen  kreutzers.  I  got  last  night 
a  beefsteak  and  salad,  bread,  and  two  mass, 
or  eight  tumblers,  of  beer  for  thirty  kreutzers. 
I  heard  a  man  say  yesterday  to  another  that 
he  went  away  early  — "  the  fact  is,"  said  he, 


122   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

"  I  can't  stand  beer."  "Nor  /,  either?  replied 
Herr  Braam,  the  landlord ;  "  when  I  have 
drunk  six  mass  I  am  satisfied."  Now  a  Bava 
rian  mass  holds  four  good-sized  tumblers. 
You  are  not  by  any  means  to  suppose  that 
a  man  gets  drunk  on  less  than  six  m.  My 
favourite  feat  in  Heidelberg  was  to  drink  a 
mass  without  stopping  to  breathe,  but  a  Ba- 
disch  mass  is  smaller  than  a  Bavarian. 

Talking  of  waltzing,  you  ought  to  have 
seen  me  waltzing  in  the  Prater  the  other 
Sunday.  The  Prater  is  to  Munich  what  La 
Grande  Chaumure  is  to  Paris,  with  the  trifling 
distinction  that  it  is  considerably  too  Philis- 
trisch  for  the  students,  and,  to  tell  the  truth, 

is  pretty  d d  low.    I  inveigled  a  young 

Bursch,  with  long  hair  and  braided  coat,  into 
showing  me  there.  In  Heidelberg,  where  the 
students  are  a  thousand  times  more  noble 
and  decent  than  the  Bavar.,  a  student  dances 
in  the  lowest  Kirchweihe  and  is  still  decent, 
but  the  men  here  never  seek  such  places  — 
and  so  lose  lots  of  fun.  I  only  went,  indeed, 
out  of  curiosity.  N.  B.  Without  too  much 
vanity  I  must  say  that  my  waltzing  is  not  con 
sidered  by  any  means  bad,  even  in  Germany. 


MUNICH  123 

The  picture  accompanying  this  is,  beyond 
all  doubt,  an  authentic  Albert  Diirer,  and  if 
money  can  be  made  by  selling  such  pictures 
at  any  price  above  75  cents,  tell  me,  for  I 
have  got  an  opportunity  of  purchasing  a  great 
number  of  real  Albert  Diirers  and  Rem- 
brandts  here ;  I  mean,  of  course,  only  engrav 
ings  by  those  great  artists,  for  you  know  that 
they  engraved  as  well  as  painted.  Don't  sell 
that  for  less  than  $1.50  or  $2.00,  but,  if 
you  can,  do  it  and  keep  the  tin.  Talking  of 
drinking,  the  only  time  I  ever  had  beer  get 
into  my  head,  since  I  have  been  in  Munich, 
was  one  evening  when  I  held  with  five  pro 
fessors  a  grand  beer  celebration  in  the  Hil- 
debrand  in  honour  of  the  arrival  of  an  old 
professor  of  theology  from  Tubingen,  and, 
upon  my  honour,  my  very  good  friend  the 
professor  of  mathematics  was  pretty  consid 
erably  drunk !  This  was  an  extraordinary  oc 
casion,  understand  now.  I  hope  I  can  make 
you  feel  the  truth.  When  a  man  drinks  in 
America  he 's  a  rowdy  —  he  belongs  to  the 
caste  of  the  dissipated ;  in  quiet,  slow,  solemn 
Deutschland,  everybody  drinks  beer,  no 
body  gets  drunk.  .  .  .  The  prof,  of  theology 
drank  like  a  Christian.  Ah,  you  can't  under- 


124  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

stand  how  very  different  Germany  is  from  our 

Amerique  f 

• 

I  must  say  a  word  about  studying.  I  propose 
theology,  and  I  want  to  know  if  a  man  can 
study  in-  Germany  and  then  enter  upon  his 
duties  immediately  in  America  ?  My  money- 
spending  days  I  hope  are  over,  and  if  you 
were  only  here  I  'd  show  you  a  few  things.  I 
don't  believe  that  man  can  lead  a  happier  life 
than  I  can  here. 

I  had  almost  forgotten  to  say  that  I  went 
before  the  police  this  morning,  and  was  in 
formed  that  I  was  to  pay  36  kreutzers  for  my 
month's  residence  and  for  neglect  in  not  fork 
ing  over  sooner.  But,  Mein  Herr,  quoth  I,  "  I 
am  a  student,  and  students  don't  pay  it."  Then 
I  showed  my  card  of  matriculat.  "  Ja,ja?  said 
he,  "you  are  not  obliged  then  to  pay  for  resi 
dence,  but  you  must  pay  nine  kreutzers  for  not 
having  paid  for  it  before."  At  this  awful, 
dreadful  piece  of  stupidity,  I  almost  fainted. 
The  idea  of  not  being  liable  to  a  fine,  and 
yet  be  fined  for  not  paying  it  when  it  came 
due,  is  too  rich  for  endurance.  As  it 's  very 
unprofitable  work  arguing  with  a  police  com- 


MUNICH  125 

missionaire  on  such  subjects,  I  passed  out  the 
fippeny  bit  (exactly  six  cents),  and  travelled. 
The  fines  in  Germany  are  very  light.  One 
sees  about  Heidelberg  stuck  up:  36  Kr.  (25 
cts.)  fine  for  stealing  fruit,!  and  40  cents  for 
riding  fast  over  a  bridge,  which  costs  five  dol 
lars  in  America.  I  once  saw  on  the  Neckar, 
by  an  old  ruined  castle,  boards  stating  that  it 
was  punishable  by  a  fine  of  eight  cents  to  enter 
the  court,  and,  I  think,  six  cents  for  smoking 
when  once  in.  I  met  the  prof.  math,  in  the 
street.  He  said  that  the  police  functionaries 
were  unverschamt  in  pumping  money  on  any 
pretence  whatever.  In  Italy,  they'll  cheat 
you  out  of  your  change  in  the  Post  Office, 
and  a  Roman  douanier  once  tried  it  over  me 
—  to  steal  my  hair  brush  when  he  searched 
my  carpet-bag  —  and  yet  I  had  given  the 
blackguard  some  change  not  to  search  too 
deep.  I  did  n't  know  what  the  mischief  the 
police  could  want  with  me  when  I  went,  for 
the  Government  here  works  things,  as  they 
were  worked  in  France,  by  spies  and  persec. 
You  dare  not  speak  openly  here  as  on  the 
Rhine  —  I  mean  in  Baden,  where  all  is  very 
free. 

Hurrah !    I  have  raised  a  couple  of  tickets 


126  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

to  a  concert  and  a  ball  gratis  —  so  we  shall 
have  some  good  music  and  waltz  after  it. 

Well,  my  brother,  keep  up  a  brave  heart, 
and  come  out  here  in  the  fall,  or  before  if 
you  can. 

Your  truly  and  really  affectionate 

CHARLES. 

MUNICH,  July  7,   1847. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  I  've  already  written  you 
one  letter,  and,  not  feeling  satisfied  with  it 
and  not  considering  it  as  an  adequate  return 
for  your  mammoth,  have  begun  another  which 
I  trust  to  make  an  improved  edition  of.  I  am 
as  well  pleased  with  the  style  of  your  last  as 
its  size.  So  you  're  in  a  store,  but  don't  call 
yourself  a  Philister.  No  man  is  a  Philister, 
unless  he  has  a  miserable  small  soul,  which, 
as  the  Germans  say,  "  makes  small  great  and 
great  small."  Lola  Montez  was  near  being 
assassinated  three  days  ago  —  don't  know  the 
particulars.  A.  ghost  has  been  busy  in  a  house 
not  very  far  from  here,  and  about  a  thousand 
Dutch  were  lying  in  wait  for  it  two  nights 
ago ;  to-morrow  is  the  Queen's  birthday,  and 
we  have  n't  got  any  lectures,  and  I  'm  going 


MUNICH  127 

to  draw  fifty  dollars  from  that  old  Jew  banker, 
Hirsch —  and  now  you  Ve  got  all  the  news.  I  Ve 
made  fifty  dollars  last  for  exactly  one  month. 
Owing  to  a  mistake  of  that  fool  of  a  banker's 
clerk,  I  told  Father  in  my  letter  that  it  was 
almost  two.  Please  to  correct.  The  clerk 
dated  the  letter  of  credit  wrongly,  and  I  fol 
lowed  him.  In  addition  to  the  items  men 
tioned  in  my  letter  to  Father,  I  did  all  the 
beer  requisite  and  stood  divers  suppers,  an 
excursion,  etc.  There 's  economy  for  you.  I 
hope  soon  to  live  on  a  penny  a  day,  and,  if 
possible,  save  on  it.  Also,  I  include  two  bot 
tles  of  Medoc  at  sixty  cents  per  bottle.  You 
don't  get  such  Medoc,  at  such  a  price,  in 
Philadelphia. 

I  saw  M.  S.  here  the  other  day.  He 's  friz 
up  like  an  icicle,  and  as  cold  and  polished  as 
a  diamond.  He  '11  do  in  Philadelphia,  and 
may  come  it  over  the  natives,  but  not  over  me. 
I  can't  stand  such  cursed  half  affected  cold 
ness,  which  puts  external  polish  and  sangfroid 
over  everything.  He  did  n't  keep  it  up  in 
my  room,  and  even  got  half  through  a  meer 
schaum.  He  did  n't  know  the  first  thing  about 
student  life,  and  I  believe  has  seen  devilish 
little  of  Germany  in  the  way  I  've  seen  it. 


128   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

I  Ve  been  pretty  considerably  deep  into  the 
Dutch,  old  fellow,  and  can  expatiate.  His  pre 
valent  idea  is  "  gentleman,  gentleman,  gentle 
man."  So  is  mine,  but  not  in  his  way.  I  'm 
convinced,  after  all  my  European  experiences, 
that  no  man  can  do  the  nil  admirari,  unless 
he 's  born  to  do  it,  and  he  must  be  born  partly 
fool  then.  I  could  give  you  examples  which 
would  make  your  blood  run  cold.  Oh,  what 
puppies  I  have  seen  on  the  Continent!  I 
verily  think  that  many  of  them  have  no  idea 
of  a  future  state  or  of  anything  beyond  horse 
and  mistress.  .  .  . 

The  more  I  see  of  Munich  the  more  I 
admire  it. 


CHAPTER  V 

PARIS    IN   '48 

APPRENTICESHIP  was  not  at  an  end  when 
Munich  was  deserted.  I  count  as  part  of  it  the 
Rye's  wanderings  to  Vienna,  —  then  "  all  bril 
liant  foam  and  sunshine  and  laughing  sirens, 
where  what  new  thing  Strauss  would  play  in 
the  evening  was  the  great  event  of  the  day," 
—  to  Prague,  and  Nuremberg,  and  Dresden, 
and  Berlin,  to  the  towns  of  Holland  and  Bel 
gium  ;  I  count,  too,  the  start  for  Cracow,  the 
encounter  with  Russian  customs  officials  on 
the  frontier,  the  necktie  concealing  suspicious 
papers,  —  how  like  a  student's  necktie  ;  and 
what  were  those  papers,  I  wonder  ?  —  and  the 
experiences  at  the  Leipzig  yearly  fair,  and, 
above  all,  the  gaiety  and  good  comradeship 
that  was  the  best  part  of  the  journey.  Over 
its  every  incident,  big  or  little,  was  the  gla 
mour  of  youth,  and  its  climax  was  Paris. 

In  Paris  he  returned  to  the  more  serious 
business  of  the  student.  His  chief  end  was  to 
make  what  he  could  of  the  lectures  at  the  Col- 


130  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

lege  Louis  le  Grand  and  the  Sorbonne.  One 
course  was  the  "  very  dull  series  on  German 
Literature  by  Philarete  Chasles,"  and  I  do  not 
wonder  he  found  it  dull,  if  I  can  judge  by 
the  "  Memoirs  "  of  the  lecturer,  and  my  own 
amazement  to  discover  that  a  Frenchman 
of  letters,  who  had  lived  through  the  stirring 
days  of  the  Romantic  Revolt,  could  write  the 
dullest  autobiography  it  has  ever  been  my 
misfortune  to  read. 

But  towards  the  end  of  1847  and  begin 
ning  of  1848,  there  was  more  for  the  wide 
awake  youth  to  learn  from  Paris  itself  than 
from  the  most  accomplished  lecturer.  Shortly 
after  his  arrival,  the  young  student  took 
rooms  in  the  old  Hotel  du  Luxembourg  in 
the  Rue  de  la  Harpe,  described  by  Washing 
ton  Irving  in  that  story  of  the  girl  with  the 
black  ribbon  round  her  throat,  brought  home 
by  the  youth,  before  whose  horrified  eyes  her 
head  fell,  once  the  ribbon  was  removed.  Hers 
would  have  been  an  appropriate  ghost  to 
meet  on  the  fine  old  Renaissance  stairway, 
the  glory  of-  the  house,  for  she  had  been  the 
victim  of  the  first  Revolution,  and  the  men 
of  flesh  and  blood  now  hurrying  up  and  down 
the  same  stairs,  were  busy  plotters  of  a  second. 


PARIS   IN   '48  131 

The  Rye,  watched  over  by  his  Guardian  An 
gel  of  the  Odd,  had  had  the  luck  to  tumble 
into  the  headquarters  of  the  growing  discon 
tent.  "All  over  the  Latin  Quarter,  on  our 
side  of  the  river,  in  cafes  and  balls,  and  in 
shops,  and  talking  to  everybody,  went  the 
mysterious  dwellers  of  the  Hotel  du  Luxem 
bourg,  sounding  public  opinion  and  gathering 
signs  and  omens,  and  making  recruits,  and 
laying  trains  which,  when  fired,  caused  explo 
sions  all  over  Europe,  and  sounds  which  still 
live  in  history.  The  great  secret  of  the  suc 
cess  of  the  Revolution  was  that  it  was  in  the 
hands  of  so  few  persons,  who  were  all  abso 
lutely  secret  and  trustworthy.  If  there  had 
been  a  few  more,  the  police  would  have  found 
us  out  to  a  certainty.  One  who  was  suspected 
was  *  squared.' " 

In  the  first  half  of  the  last  century  "  the 
younger  men  "  were  quick  to  answer  to  the 
call  of  revolution.  Byron  had  made  it  the 
fashion  in  England.  Even  Tennyson,  as  a 
youth,  had  hurried,  with  money  and  his  ap 
proval,  to  the  rebels  in  Spain,  just  as  Mrs. 
Browning  was  to  challenge  the  Italian  despots 
from  "  Casa  Guidi  Windows,"  and  Swinburne, 
in  London,  was  to  sing  his  "  Songs  before 


132  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Sunrise."  From  America,  too,  knight-errants 
of  liberty  set  forth  on  similar  adventures,  — 
the  young  Poe  bent  upon  fighting  the  heathen 
in  Turkey,  and  now  the  young  Leland  help 
ing  to  uncrown  kings  in  France.  The  blood 
of  his  fighting  ancestors  and  of  his  own  youth 
ran  in  his  veins,  and,  throwing  in  his  lot  with 
thje  Revolutionists,  he  became  one  of  the  inner 
circle  at  the  Hotel  du  Luxembourg. 

Revolution  does  not  break  out  in  a  day, 
and  Paris  was  delightful  even  in  its  discon 
tent.  The  duty  of  students  was  to  be  gay 
at  all  seasons,  under  all  circumstances.  The 
Vie  de  Boheme  had  not  become  petrified  into 
a  legend ;  Murger,  its  prophet,  was  just  be 
ginning  to  be  heard  of.  The  Rye  was  never 
reduced  to  the  expedients  of  Rodolphe  and 
the  others,  for  he  was  not  without  money. 
But  a  student's  money  is  sure  to  fall  short 
sometime.  When  his  did,  he  dined  for  a 
franc  in  the  little  places  of  the  Rive  Gauche, 
or  outside  the  Barrier,  finishing  the  evening 
at  Bobino's.  When  money  was  plentiful,  he 
dined  at  Magny's  and  went  to  the  Theatre 
Fran^ais.  There  came  a  time,  after  years  as 
a  dramatic  critic,  when  he  lost  interest  in  the 
theatre.  But  in  Paris,  in  1848,  the  stage  was 


PARIS   IN   '48  133 

a  marvellous  part  of  the  marvellous  new  life 
he  was  living.  A  letter,  written  as  recently  as 
1900,  to  his  nephew  —  my  brother  —  Edward 
Robins,  who  had  just  published  "  Twelve 
Great  Actresses,"  shows  how  seriously  he  had, 
in  his  student  days,  studied  the  drama  as  an 
art.  He  had  begun  his  letter  by  praising  my 
brother,  saying  the  kind  things  he  knew  so 
well  how  to  say,  that  a  young  author  likes  to 
hear,  and  he  went  on,  drawing  largely  upon 
the  old  memories,  to  question  whether  suffi 
cient  distinction  had  been  made  in  the  book 
between  "  mere  art  and  pure  sympathetic  ge 
nius.  Sometimes  there  is  so  much  art  that  the 
multitude  believe  it  is  genius.  Both  Rachel 
and  Bernhardt  were,  like  all  Jews,  immensely 
talented  and  quick  to  feel  what  took  with  the 
public;  but  though  great  as  actresses,  they 
belonged  to  the  second  class.  Read  what 
Heine  says  of  Rachel,  how  severely  he  blames 
her  want  of  all  soul,  and  yet  33  a  Jew  he 
would  fain  praise  her. 

"I  saw  Rachel  for  the  first  time  in  1847. 
I  was  then  twenty-four,  and  I  never  shall 
forget  how,  while  I  appreciated  her  mere 
skill  and  cleverness,  I  was,  I  may  say,  dis 
gusted  at  her  tricks  of  the  stage  and  utter 


134  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

want  of  souL  Her  great  dodge  was  to  work 
herself  into  a  spasm  of  passion  and  excite 
ment,  and  then  in  a  second  cast  herself  into 
a  statuesque  attitude  of  utter  calm  and  ex 
claim  in  an  icy  voice,  '  Monsieur,'  or  *  Mon 
Seigneur.'  And  then  all  Paris,  from  Dumas 
down,  went  mad  with  applause ;  but  it  was 
so  transparently  tricky  that  I  could  only 
laugh. 

"  Rachel  was  so  illiterate  that  she  did  not 
understand  her  characters;  she  only  had  a 
marvellous  intuition  as  to  what  would  be  a 
great  hit  or  coup.  So  she  served  them  all  up 
in  the  same  sauce,  unlike  Janauschek,  who 
caught  the  true  character  of  every  separate 
heroine. 

"  The  story  is  true  of  Rachel  that,  having 
to  die  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  act  of  a  play, 
she  never  read  the  fifth  act.  Sarah  Bernhardt 
is  of  her  type.  If  acting  be  only  imitating 
and  carrying  out  conventional  tricks,  they  are 
both  great.  If  it  be  expressing  higher  truth 
and  nature  by  genius,  then  they  were  or  are 
merely  second-rate  elevens ts.  The  vast  ma 
jority  of  mankind  do  not  rise  above  admiring 
mere  acting."  :W: 

As  time  went  on,  that  memorable  year  of 


PARIS   IN   '48  135 

1848  once  fairly  begun,  the  drama  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river  —  the  Rive  Gauche  — 
quickened  until  not  Lemaitre  nor  Rachel 
could  present  anything  on  the  stage  as  thrill 
ing.  "At  last  the  ball  opened."  The  day 
came  when  in  the  little  street,  a  mere  alley 
running  down  to  the  Seine,  in  which  it  is 
said  that  every  Paris  revolution  has  broken 
out,  he  heard  shots  fired,  and  saw  General 
Changarnier  charge.  All  the  night  following 
he  listened  to  the  great  storm-bell  of  Notre 
Dame.  And  the  next  morning,  the  morning 
of  the  famous  24th  of  February,  he  marched 
forth  to  share  the  fighting :  a  striking  figure, 
with  his  rakish  student  cap  set  on  one  side 
of  his  long  hair,  a  monocle  in  one  eye,  a  red 
sash  about  his  waist,  a  dirk  and  pistol  for 
arms,  so  tall  that  he  towered  high  above  the 
mob.  He  wrote  afterwards  that  Dumas  had 
helped  to  bring  about  the  revolution  by  set 
ting  up  the  swaggering  swashbuckler  as  the 
romantic  type  of  hero.  I  think  love  of  ro 
mance  had  everything  to  do  with  his  own 
share  in  the  exploit.  Anyway,  fight  he  did, 
always  in  the  thick  of  it,  leading  the  insur 
gents,  when  asked  to  be  their  leader,  —  as 
a  student  of  his  commanding  presence  was 


136  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

bound  to  be  asked,  —  charging  the  soldiers, 
building  barricades  in  the  Rue  de  la  Harpe, 
in  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine,  distributing 
ammunition,  going  and  coming  through  the 
day's  drama. 

He  saw  it  all,  —  saw  the  stones  pulled  up 
in  the  streets  and  built  into  barricades,  "  in 
grim  earnest,  without  talking ;  "  saw  soldiers 
suddenly  flinging  down  their  arms  and  falling 
into  the  arms  of  the  people ;  saw  the  Tuileries 
in  smoke  and  flame,  he  one  of  the  first  to 
rush  to  the  rescue  and  write  the  notices 
"  Respect  Property  "  in  the  rooms  the  fire  had 
not  reached,  touching  (how  like  him !)  the 
inkstand  for  luck  as  he  wrote ;  saw  the  mob 
pouring  out  from  the  royal  kitchens  and  cel 
lars,  fowls  and  joints  borne  aloft  on  the  point 
of  the  bayonet,  wine  drunk  by  the  pailful; 
saw  the  descent  upon  the  Hotel  Cluny  and 
the  sortie,  knights  in  mediaeval  armour  bear 
ing  down  upon  the  Parisian  crowd ;  saw  bon 
fires  kindled  with  the  royal  carriages  along 
the  quays ;  saw  men  dying  like  dogs  at  street 
corners;  saw,  for  all  the  horror  of  it,  the 
drollery  too,  when  a  fellow-student  set  to 
building  barricades  in  white  kid  gloves,  or  a 
pretty  girl  took  a  kiss  as  answer  to  her  chal- 


PARIS   IN   '48  137 

lenge ;  in  a  word,  saw  all  the  tragedy  and 
comedy,  all  the  tears  and  laughter,  that  go 
to  the  making  of  a  revolution. 

I  have  been  content  to  give  this  bare  outline 
of  his  life,  from  the  time  he  left  Munich  until 
the  Revolution  in  Paris,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  the  details  are  so  well  filled  in  by  the  few 
of  his  letters  relating  to  the  period  now  in  my 
possession.  How  few  they  are,  in  proportion 
to  the  many  he  wrote,  I  know.  It  was  his 
habit  to  number  those  to  his  brother;  "thirty" 
is  written  at  the  top  of  the  last  I  have  to 
quote;  and  of  these  thirty,  not  a  third  have 
so  far  been  discovered.  The  loss  would  have 
been"  greater  had  he  not  sent  long  and  full 
accounts  of  himself  to  other  members  of  his 
family.  Passages  in  his  letters  to  his  father 
and  mother  often  strike  me  as  a  trifle  stilted 
and  self-conscious,  but  this  was  because  he 
knew  they  would  eventually  make  their  way  to 
"  Aunty  Hale,"  Mrs.  Sarah  Hale  of  "  Godey's 
Lady's  Book,"  and  other  editors.  "  Last  Thurs 
day  night  I  sat  up  till  two  in  the  morning," 
Henry  reports  in  April,  1848,  "copying  your 
Revolutionary  letter  in  order  to  have  it  in 
serted  in  the  Saturday  '  North  American '  and 
'  United  States  Gazette : '  it  appeared  and  was 


138  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

liked  by  every  one,  Miss  Leslie  adding  her 
mite  of  laudation."  When  writing  to  his 
brother,  the  Rye  was  troubled  by  no  fear  of 
the  editorial  blue  pencil.  Moreover,  he  did 
his  best  to  let  the  younger  brother  he  had 
left  behind  profit  by  his  experiences  and  see 
the  world  through  his  eyes.  The  letters  to 
HenryLeland  are  a  mirror  of  student  life  in 
Paris  during  the  forties,  seen  entirely  from 
the  student's  standpoint,  and  they  have  a 
freshness  and  spontaneity  that  could  not  be 
looked  for  in  the  "  Memoirs,"  written  after 
such  a  long  interval  without  their  help.  There 
is  not  more  local  colour  in  Murger  than  in 
the  description  of  the  students  on  the  Hill  of 
Sainte  Genevieve,  with  all  their  absurd  fash 
ions  and  gay  follies,  their  cafes  and  balls,  their 
studies  and  songs,  their  would-be  cynicisms. 
To  Henry,  also,  the  Rye  wrote  more  freely  of 
the  "adventures  "  and  "  strange  coincidences," 
for  which,  already,  he  had  developed  "  an  ex 
traordinary  talent;"  to  Henry  he  was  lavish 
with  advice  on  the  subject  both  of  study  and 
conduct ;  advice  that,  Henry  assured  him  in 
answers  so  amusing  I  wish  I  could  include 
them,  had  been  "  the  formation  and  salvation  of 
myself,  your  younger  brother — therefore  just 


PARIS   IN   '48  139 

listen.  I,  Henry  P.  Leland,  do  hereby  declare 
to  you,  my  own  dear  Charles,  that,  with  a 
truth-telling  tongue,  I  do  owe  unto  you  an  in 
fernal  quantity  of  good  advice,  and  when  I  've 
followed  it,  found  it  to  succeed,  wherefore  I 
shall  persevere  in  the  course  taken  of  following 
your  good  precepts,  and  may  the  devil  fly  away 
with  me  if  I  don't  profit  by  such  a  mode."  I 
print  the  Rye's  letters  in  order,  according  to 
date.  They  are  written  on  the  large  sheets 
of  very  thin  paper  which  expensive  postage 
then  made  not  so  much  the  fashion  as  indis 
pensable  ;  the  lines  too  close  together  for  the 
comfort  of  modern  eyes,  and  even  the  luxury  of 
a  new  paragraph  avoided  as  long  as  possible. 
The  "  dear  Frank  "  of  the  last  letter  is  his 
cousin,  Frank  Fisher,  who  had  been  study 
ing  medicine  in  Paris  when  he  first  arrived. 
Many  of  the  allusions  I  cannot  explain,  but 
the  letters  are  so  gay,  so  young,  so  spirited, 
there  is  really  no  need  of  explanation. 

CHARLES   GODFREY    LELAND  TO   MRS.    CHARLES   LELAND 

PARIS,  Oct.  30,  1847. 

DEAR  MOTHER,  —  Since  I  last  wrote  to  you 
I  have  travelled  (as  my  last  letter  to  Father 


140  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

has  by  this  time  doubtless  informed  you)  over 
a  very  respectable  portion  of  Europe,  and  I 
now  sit  down  with  the  firm  determination  of 
depicturing  some  of  the  scenes  through  which 
I  have  passed.  My  unfortunate  attempt  to 
enter  Poland  has  doubtless  awakened  all  your 
liveliest  sympathies  —  if  I  had  succeeded  I 
might  have  been  there  during  the  cholera, 
which  made  its  appearance  about  a  week  after 
I  left.  After  the  Polish  business  I  went  to 
Vienna.  If  I  could  describe  that  city,  or  give 
you  any  idea  of  its  attractions,  you  would 
wonder  that  I  could  leave  it.  I  have  now  been 
two  weeks  in  Paris,  but  must  say  that,  as  far 
as  an  agreeable  life  is  concerned,  I  infinitely 
prefer  Vienna.  Imagine  a  people  whose  every 
emotion  seems  to  spring  from  good  nature 
and  innate  politeness,  —  not  the  artificial,  cold- 
hearted  polish  of  the  French,  a  people  devoted 
to  pleasure,  inhabiting  a  beautiful  city  where 
every  attraction  presented  by  music  and  the 
other  fine  arts  is  perpetually  brought  before 
you.  Music  is  the  life  of  the  Viennese.  You 
go  in  the  evening  to  a  beautiful  garden  and 
hear  Strauss's  band,  the  finest  in  the  world, 
playing  like  one  man.  In  all  Paris  I  cannot 
persuade  myself  that  I  have  as  yet  heard  good 


PARIS   IN    '48  141 

music.  They  want  the  exquisite  harmony  and 
unity  of  execution  which  characterises  the 
meanest  little  band  in  Germany.  On  the 
way  to  Vienna  from  Prague,  at  every  station 
where  the  cars  stopped  stood  a  band  of  mu 
sicians,  who  played  until  we  started !  But 
Vienna!  its  beautiful  streets,  gardens,  pal 
aces,  the  fine  picture  galleries  and  dancing 
saloons,  the  varied  crowds  in  the  streets,  the 
gay  Hungarian  costume  which  you  meet  with 
at  every  corner,  and  the  opera,  all  remain  in 
my  mind  like  a  bright  dream.  In  Vienna 
everything  is  gay,  —  no  word  expresses  it  so 
well.  All  of  the  principal  stores  have  beauti 
fully  painted  signs,  such  as  "  the  Bride,"  "  the 
Suabian  peasant  girl,"  "  the  Queen  of  Naples," 
"  the  Magyar,"  and  some  of  them  historical 
pictures,  which  form  a  distinctive  feature  in 
the  city.  At  the  hotels  there  is  no  table  d'hote, 
every  one  dines  a  la  carte,  that  is,  pays  piece 
by  piece  for  everything.  In  Vienna  you  pay 
extra  for  mustard  and  of  course  for  bread.  I 
am  often  amused  at  travellers  who  have  to 
pay  as  much  again  as  I  do  at  the  hotels,  etc., 
not  knowing  the  language  or  the  people. 
Vienna  is  one  of  the  cheapest  cities  in  Eu 
rope,  and  yet  travellers  say  that  it  is  as  dear 


I42  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

as  London!  We —  I  and  my  English  friend 
—  had  a  very  beautifully  furnished,  handsome 
room  for  45  cents  a  day,  with  two  beds,  at  a 
decent  hotel.  All  our  furniture  was  new  and 
red-velveted.  Curtains  first  class.  But  we 
made  a  bargain  for  it.  Eating  is  cheap  and 
good  (when  you  know  where  to  look  for  it). 
In  Paris  you  can  almost  always  get  a  theatre 
ticket  for  half  price,  when  there  is  no  extra 
attraction,  at  a  store !  In  Vienna  I  called  on 
Mr.  Norris,  and  afterwards  on  Mr.  Stiles,  our 
Charge.  At  the  latter's,  I  had  an  opportunity 
of  verifying  an  eccentric  hypothesis  of  my 
Englishman's.  He  asserts  that  he  never  in  his 
life  called  once  on  an  Ambassador  or  Charge 
without  seeing  a  pretty  girl.  At  Mr.  Stiles' 
I  saw  two,  one  the  servant  or  some  poor  rela 
tion  —  the  other  I  took  to  be  his  daughter. 
Vienna  is  the  place  for  a  man  with  the  blues. 
All  is  gaiety  and  all  is  open-hearted  sincerity ! 
At  some  of  the  public  balls,  however,  the 
good-natured  young  gentlemen  and  ladies 
carry  this  want  of  reserve  a  fraction  too  far, 
but,  to  their  praise  be  it  said,  not  a  thousandth 
part  of  the  excess  to  which  it  would  be  car 
ried  in  England  or  America  in  similar  places. 
In  Germany,  the  most  improper  characters 


PARIS   IN   '48  143 

never  commit  any  impropriety  publicly,  un 
less  waltzing  be  improper —  and  this  they  do 
carry  to  a  fearful  extent !  But  a  German  never 
presumes  upon  waltzing.  Well,  I  should  have 
said  that  before  I  got  to  Vienna  I  was  in 
Prague  —  or  in  Dresden,  Leipzig,  etc.,  etc. 
Prague  is  an  old  Bohemian  city,  perhaps  one 
of  the  most  picturesque  and  beautiful  in 
Europe.  It  looks  at  a  distance  like  an  en 
chanted  city  —  there  is  something  so  wizard- 
like,  so  strange  and  unworldly,  and  yet  so 
beautiful  in  its  appearance.  .  .  .  Dresden  I 
have  described.  If  I  were  to  choose  any  city 
in  Germany  for  a  residence,  I  should  perhaps 
give  it  the  preference,  though  I  should  almost 
balance  Vienna  or  Berlin  with  it.  Eh  bien  / 
ou  faut-il  alter  ?  I  Ve  been  over  the  Rhine 
with  knapsack,  with  carpet-bag,  and  once  on 
a  part  of  it  without  either.  I  Ve  been  in  Bres- 
lau,  that  meanest  of  Jew  towns,  and  seen  the 
fair  in  Leipzig.  I  Ve  drunk  wine  in  Auer- 
bach's  cellar  there,  where  Doctor  Faust  and 
the  Devil  played  such  queer  tricks.  A  Ger 
man  fair  is  really  something  very  interesting, 
something  you  never  saw  the  like  of  in  Amer 
ica.  Imagine  a  mile  of  improvised  streets, 
with  booths  and  tents  for  houses.  All  sorts 


144   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

of  wares  for  sale,  from  horses  and  cows  down 
to  a  penny  pipe,  including  silk,  velvets,  and 
gingerbread.  Behind  many  of  the  stands  sit 
pretty  Tyrolese  girls,  with  hats  such  as  their 
ancestresses  wore  in  the  9th  century,  of  green 
felt,  or  handsome  Tyrolese  men  looking  with 
the  girls  as  if  they  had  just  walked  off  the 
stage  of  a  theatre.  I  feel,  for  my  part,  in  such 
scenes  as  if  a  play  were  really  being  per 
formed,  and  always  entertain  a  half  convic 
tion  that  I  am  a  supernumerary  "  gent "  hired 
to  walk  up  and  down.  Then  the  fancy  dresses 
of  various  German  peasants !  Students  stroll 
ing  along  with  that  indescribable  gait  which 
is  the  same  in  Princeton,  in  Rome,  in  Heidel 
berg,  or  Paris.  Why  are  students  alike  the 
whole  world  over?  Then  there  is  one  part  of 
the  fair  where  much  is  to  be  seen  gratis,  and 
much  more  for  money.  Elephants  and  mon 
keys  cannot  of  course  fail,  any  more  than 
fried  buns  or  sugar-plums,  but  the  great  at 
traction  is  Hans  Wurst.  Do  you  ask  who 
Hans  Wurst  is  ?  His  name  being  translated 
means  Jack  Pudding  or  Jack  Sausage.  He 
figures  everywhere.  He  danceth  on  a  rope 
and  throweth  summersaults.  He  preaches  to 
the  people  on  patent  blacking,  lectures  to 


PARIS   IN   '48  145 

them  on  wax  figures,  and  gravely  reproves 
them  for  not  going  to  see  the  celebrated  me 
chanical  figures.  Anon,  he  rides  the  elephant 
or  is  seen  under  another  form  dealing  out 
patent  silver  wash.  Hans  Wurst  is  the  Pun 
chinello  of  Germany.  Punch  is  here  too,  as 
in  Naples,  and  still  preserves  all  his  ancient 
popularity.  I  really  believe  that  Punch  will 
outlast  any  government  on  the  face  of  the 
world.  Well,  I  fly  about  in  my  letter  as  if  I 
had  wings.  How  do  you  fancy  a  taste  of  Hol 
land  ?  I  have  visited  Amsterdam,  Rotterdam, 
and  been  through  Schie-dam  —  Holland  is 
the  country  of  dams,  you  know.  I  have  been 
in  the  Hague,  and  Haarlem,  have  visited  Ant 
werp  and  seen  its  cathedral  and  pictures  by 
Rubens,  have  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  bel 
fry  of  Bruges  and  was  there  while  the  bells 
rung  (my  ears  ache  when  I  think  of  it).  In 
Brussels  I  saw  the  wonders ;  in  Ghent,  do. 
In  Mechlin  I  only  ate  dinner.  Really  when 
I  run  over  this  catalogue  and  think  of  the 
things  to  be  described,  I  turn  frightened  — 
such  a  lot  of  curiosities !  Well,  here  in  Paris 
one  has  very  remarkably  fine  opportunities 
of  writing  up  travels,  for,  at  every  ten  steps, 
you  see  something  which  reminds  you  of 


146  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

something  you  have  seen  or  heard  of  before. 
Bless  me,  with  all  my  list  of  cities  I  forgot 
Halle,  Magdeburg,  Nuremberg,  and  Augs 
burg.  With  which  shall  I  begin  ?  Nurem 
berg  is  the  finest  in  the  number,  and  he  who 
has  not  felt  himself  in  another  world  in  it  (I 
should  say  in  another  age)  has  no  poetry  in 
his  soul  or  reading  in  his  head.  In  Nurem 
berg  I  met  with  some  Norwegian  artists 
who  took  me  to  a  celebrated  German  stu 
dents'  beer  kneip  called  the  Jammerthal,  or 
Vale  of  Misery,  which  has  been  a  students' 
kneip  for  400  years  —  and  always  had  good 
beer.  .  .  .  Berlin  remains  undescribed,  with 
its  palaces  and  gardens,  and  the  American 
friends  I  met  there,  and  the  Italian  opera  — 
oh,  man  Dieu  ! 

In  Paris  I  have  discovered  an  old  German 
University  friend.  Yesterday  was  a  great 
Paris  festival,  the  fete  of  all  the  dead,  and  all 
Paris  turned  out  and  went  to  Pere  la  Chaise 
to  throw  garlands  on  the  tombs  of  their  loved 
friends.  So  we  went  together,  and  talked 
German,  and  talked  about  old  times  in  the 
University,  and  agreed  that  there  was  after 
all  no  land  in  the  world  like  old  Germany 
for  comfort  or  agreeableness.  He  was  an 


ffl     2*r    \/i  ou 

fl  C*— *^-^*^  //-e-M^*. 

»     //  ^          c«^*^^<*sC^ 


^^^ 


PARIS   IN   '48  147 

Englishman,  however.  I  don't  like  my  own 
countrymen  much.  I  must  say  that  they 
quarrel  too  much  among  one  another,  those 
abroad,  and  are  fearfully  extravagant.  Mr.  P. 
was  informing  me,  in  a  good-natured  way,  that 
I  could  live  very  cheap  in  Paris.  "  A  good  quiet 
single  room,"  quoth  he,  "  such  a  one  as  you  'd 
want  —  for  you  need  n't  be  extravagant — can 
be  got  for  a  hundred  francs  a  month  in  the 
Quartier  Latin  ! "  /pay  35  francs,  and  that 
is  five  too  much.  Last  night  I  saw  Mademoi 
selle  Rachel  act  in  Phaedra.  Such  acting  — 
and  such  a  proud  deep  voice  —  the  very  sound 
of  it  moved  your  soul !  Sometimes  that  voice 
rolled  like  distant  thunder,  and  then  changed 
into  soft  music.  Fanny  Kemble,  in  her  best 
days,  might  give  some  idea  of  her.  Poor  wo 
man  !  I  came  on  with  her  from  Marseilles, 
and  from  the  little  I  saw  of  her,  was  very 
much  pleased.  I  am  sure  that  I  should  have 
been  good  friends  with  her  if  I  had  an  op 
portunity  of  knowing  her.  But  Mile.  Rachel, 
though  rather  too  French  in  her  style,  is  a 
striking  illustration  of  my  theory  that  women 
have  naturally  as  much  talent  as  men,  but 
circumstances,  alas,  repress  it.  I  know  of  no 
spectacle  really  so  sublime  as  a  woman  who 


148   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

has,  by  force  of  talent,  overcome  even  the 
obstacle  of  circumstances.  Poor  ladies  !  We 
"  lords  of  creation,"  in  my  humble  opinion, 
have  usurped  altogether  too  much  authority. 
N.  B.  This  is  not  a  German  notion  —  "  on 
the  contrary"'  A  gentleman  once  fell  down 
in  the  street ;  a  lady  asked  him  if  he  had  hurt 
himself ;  he,  aching  with  pain  and  smiling 
with  politeness,  hurriedly  replied,  "  Oh,  no, 
not  at  all,  on  the  contrary? 

Nov.  ^d.  Do  you  want  news?  The  cholera 
has  arrived.  May  God  preserve  us  from  it ! 
I  hardly  know  what  to  write.  Yesterday  and 
to-day  we  have  had  a  fog  —  such  a  fog  — 
one  degree  thicker  and  we  must  have  all  been 
drowned.  And  under  this  curtain  Paris  went 
on  as  lively  as  ever,  and  skipped,  and  cur 
vetted,  and  made  bows,  and  lorgnetted  the 
ladies,  and  went  to  the  spectacle  and  drank 
coffee,  etc.,  etc.  What  an  animal  a  French 
man  is,  half  politesse  (not  politeness)  and  half 
insolence,  and  altogether  interested.  Oh,  my 
poor  Germans !  I  wonder  how  they  get  along 
since  I  left  them.  A  consolation  for  my  vain 
soul,  in  my  cafe,  is  to  have  the  garcon  always 
bring  me  journals  in  three  or  four  languages. 
No  Frenchman  (unless  he  be  from  Alsatia) 


PARIS   IN   '48  149 

ever  speaks  anything  except  French.  In 
Germany  no  shop  girl,  or  grocer's  apprentice, 
or  hotel  waiter  hesitates  to  pay  half  of  his 
or  her  day's  wages  for  a  lesson  in  French  or 
English  at  night.  I  have  been  in  Germany 
in  balls  and  music  gardens  where  society  was 
one  grade  above  vulgarity  and  always  found 
that  the  majority  could  speak  French.  I  have 
always  been  with  and  among  the  natives,  and 
not  among  Americans,  and  have  benefited  by 
it.  Americans  hate  more  than  English  to 
suit  themselves  to  the  people  they  are  among 
—  and  then  grumble  because  in  the  country 
they  find  no  opportunity  for  speaking  the 
language.  ...  I  live  in  the  Latin  Quarter, 
very  unfashionable,  among  the  students, 
where  you  can  venture  into  the  streets  with 
a  pipe  in  your  mouth  as  if  you  were  in  Ger 
many.  Everything  is  new  and  fine  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Seine,  everything  is  old  and 
rusty  here.  This  is  the  Paris  of  the  Thir 
teenth  Century,  that  on  the  contrary  seems 
to  be  striving  to  get  ahead  of  to-morrow  in 
the  latest  fashions.  Our  streets  (I  say  it  with 
pride)  are  narrow  and  dirty,  and  the  houses 
rise  up  to  the  very  heavens.  A  day  or  two 
ago  a  fiacre  came  driving  down  on  me ;  I 


ISO   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

escaped,  but  it  hit  a  glazier's  boy  just  behind 
me,  who  was  carrying  a  great  pane  of  glass 
in  a  box  on  his  back.  He  jumped  backwards 
to  avoid  the  collision,  and  in  so  doing  drove 
his  pane  of  glass  into  a  shop  window,  break 
ing  both.  Out  jumped  the  shopman  and 
raised  a  lovely  row.  I,  Carlos,  walked  off, 
fervently  blessing  my  lucky  sjtar.  Street  col 
lisions  are  frequent  here.  Night  before  last, 
walking  home  with  my  Anglais,  we  saw  two 
carriages  lock  wheel  and  hub,  and  drive  on 
together  to  the  imminent  danger  of  the  lives 
of  all  concerned.  Finally  they  stopped  and 
a  great  swearing  ensued.  "  How  they  do 
talk,"  said  I  to  my  Englishman.  "  Yes,  but," 
added  he  with  a  feeling  of  real  amazement, 
"  where  the  mischief  did  all  those  soldiers  come 
from  ? "  For,  upon  my  word,  the  wheels 
had  hardly  touched  before  I  distinctly  saw 
three  mounted  cuirassiers,  besides  some  gen 
darmes,  and  a  man  with  a  long  pole  and  a 
lantern  about  them.  So  it  goes  in  Paris  — 
as  in  Germany :  — 

You  cannot  eat  —  you  cannot  drink, 
Nor  have  a  row  —  nor  hardly  think, 
For  fear  you  should  create  a  charm 
To  conjure  up  the  fiend  John  Darm  ! ! ! 


PARIS   IN   '48  151 

One  of  the  great  complaints  of  strangers  in 
Paris  is  the  way  the  pretty  girls  in  the  stores 
humbug  them  into  buying  anything  and 
everything.  They  will  get  a  gentleman,  old 
or  young,  into  a  corner,  and  causer  and  com 
pliment  him,  and  show  this  and  that,  and 
flatter  till  the  poor  man,  like  Dr.  Franklin 
at  Whitefield's  preaching,  fairly  empties  his 
pockets.  Now  /  (I  say  it  modestly)  am 
rather  proof  against  this  sort  of  thing,  quite 
a  barbarian  in  fact.  Well,  Mamma,  I  was 
going  along  the  other  day,  and,  wanting  a 
pair  of  suspenders,  entered  a  shop.  Well, 
Mademoiselle  led  me  into  a  snug  little  room, 
and  after  selling  the  suspenders,  began  to 
causer — to  talk.  I  let  her  run  on,  and  at 
the  first  pause  gravely  asked,  "  Can  you 
talk  German ? "  " Non,  monsieur'"  "  Or  any 
thing  except  French  ?  "  "  Non,  monsieur!1 
And  I  replied,  "  I  dislike  speaking  French 
very  much."  With  this  piece  of  studied 
incivility,  I  escaped.  How  I  hate  to  have 
shop  people  try  to  make  you  buy  things 
you  don't  want!  A  pretty  face  is  no  safe 
guard  against  me,  for  in  damp  weather  my 
German  phlegm  aggravates  itself  into  Rus 
sian  bearishness  against  any  sort  of  humbug, 


152  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

feminine  or  otherwise.  I  rather  admire  Rus 
sians  myself.  I  wonder  how  you  will  like 
this  letter.  I  have  tried  to  make  it  interest 
ing,  and  really  not  attained  my  mark  (with 
out  fishing  for  compl.).  My  last  story  will 
displease  you  —  but  even  an  angel  can't 
be  without  blemish,  let  alone  a  poor  devil  of 
a  student  who  has  no  earthly  check  on  his 
humours  and  caprices.  .  .  .  Italy,  oh  Italy ! 
This  is  the  weather  to  think  of  Naples,  or 
Heidelberg.  In  the  first,  I  should  have  sun 
shine  and  oranges  —  in  the  second,  a  hot 
stove  and  beer!  How  delightful  it  was  in 
Italy ;  life  glided  by  like  a  dream,  a  summer 
dream.  German  life  was  a  solemn,  sombre 
twilight  meditation  among  gray  ruins  and 
under  the  rustling  boughs.  Oh  thou  my 
soul,  say  whither  art  thou  fleeting !  To  fields 
of  light  where  fairy  brooklets  flow.  What  a 
queer  thing  it  is  to  live  alone  in  Paris !  Last 
night  I  met  with  two  Americans  at  Frank's. 
One  of  them  rather  pleased  me,  he  did  not 
seem,  like  almost  every  American  traveller, 
to  be  divided  solely  between  feverish  mad 
dening  dissipation  and  contempt  for  every 
thing  foreign.  I  forget  his  name.  I  wish 
that  everybody  who  comes  abroad  were  like 


PARIS   IN   '48  153 

my  friend  Ward  of  Boston,  now  probably  on 
his  way  home.  My  English  friend  said  to 
me,  a  day  or  two  ago,  I  wonder  that  you  ever 
could  leave  Munich.  I  was  really  as  happy 
there  as  could  be,  and  always  am  happy 
when  I  can  live  in  quiet.  I  only  hate  dis 
turbance,  and  Munich  is  the  quietest,  gentlest 
place  in  the  world.  But  its  winters  are  Cana 
dian  —  1 700  feet  high  !  What  a  location  for 
a  pulmonary !  .  .  . 

What  a  queer  place  a  French  cafe  is ! 
Mine  is  a  remarkably  strange  one,  for  it  is 
frequented  almost  exclusively  by  foreigners, 
the  great  proportion  of  them  German,  with 
plenty  of  Danes,  Poles,  or  Greek,  English, 
etc.  At  least^  30  or  40  newspapers  in  all 
languages  are  taken  there.  When  you  enter, 
you  must  touch  your  hat  to  the  Madame, 
who  sits  enthroned  behind  a  sort  of  desk,  or 
counter,  on  which  are  piles  innumerable  of 
little  silver  plates,  each  containing  four  large 
lumps  of  sugar ;  of  these,  two  are  enough  for 
your  coffee,  and  the  other  two  are  put  into 
one  tumbler  of  water,  or  by  a  Frenchman, 
into  his  pocket.  After  coffee,  you  give  the 
waiter  two  sous,  which  he  puts  into  a  vase  on 
the  counter.  At  the  end  of  the  month  the 


154  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

contents  are  shared  among  the  waiters.  I 
have  read  that  the  landlord  takes  the  lion's 
share.  All  around,  at  little  tables,  sit  people, 
reading,  smoking,  drinking  coffee,  and  play 
ing  different  games,  of  which  dominoes  in  a 
real  French  nest  is  the  principal.  Yesterday 
I  sat  listening  to  two  Germans  talking  and 
finally  joined  them,  when  the  conversation 
turned  on  Munich  and  beer.  One  had  studied 
two  years  in  Heidelberg.  Sometimes  I  meet 
with  a  good-natured  Danish  friend  who  has 
two  other  very  gentleman-like  countrymen, 
and  we  exchange  our  views  on  Paris  and 
Paris  ways  and  manners.  How  differently 
different  things  appear  to  an  American,  a 
German,  or  a  Dane!  As  for  my  English 
man,  he  is  perfectly  happy.  He  has  a  jovial 
mercurial  disposition,  and  thinks  that,  after 
Germany  (nothing  of  course  can  be  equal  to 
Germany),  France  is  the  finest  land  in  the 
world.  He  likes  to  do  an  occasional  odd 
thing,  and  gave  away  his  theatre  check  the 
other  evening  to  a  man  who  offered  him  a 
franc  and  a  half  for  it,  because  the  man  asked 
in  German.  What  a  mighty  fascination  Ger 
manism  has  over  one  who  has  once  been 
under  its  influence!  It  is  the  opium  of  the 


PARIS   IN   '48  155 

mind.  I  have  been  reading  an  Italian  paper 
this  morning,  and  have  got  some  new  ideas. 
Italy  is  making  wonderful  progress ;  the  Ital 
ians,  poor  devils,  want  nothing  but  good  gov 
ernment.  Pius  the  Ninth  is  a  glorious  char 
acter, —  that  fearless  cool  energy  of  his,  his 
common  sense  and  stern  resolution  to  do 
what  is  right,  fairly  awe  me.  Eviva  il  Pio 
Nono!  .  .  . 

When  I  left  Bruges,  I  joined  on  the  way 
a  worthy  German  gentleman  from  Bremen, 
who  was  on  a  trip  to  Paris.  We  went  to 
gether  all  day,  and  at  night  were  startled  by 
the  announcement  "  We  are  in  Paris."  I 
really  felt  a  shudder  of  awe  steal  over  me. 
PARIS  !  And  now,  I  run  about  the  town,  go 
into  the  Palais  Royal  and  Louvre,  live  in  the 
Quartier  des  Etudiants,  and  feel  as  much 
at  home  as  if  I  were  in  Heidelberg.  And  so, 
Mamma,  my  little  note  is  nearly  finished. 
Give  my  best  love  to  Father,  Henry,  and  the 
girls.  My  next  letter  to  you  shall  be  more 
studied  and  reserved,  more  cold  if  you  like, 
and,  if  any  ideas  come  into  my  brain,  more 
interesting.  Tell  me  what  you  like  to  have 
me  write  about  and  I  '11  spin  you  as  long  a 
letter  as  you  like.  If  Henry  wants  a  letter, 


156  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

he  must  help  himself  to  a  piece  of  this.  He 
can  warm  it  up  himself.  I  shall  call  Henry 
the  Admiral  in  future.  I  read  of  a  Chinese 
admiral  a  day  or  two  ago  who  flew  at  his 
enemy  and  tore  his  hair  out,  and  to  judge 
from  the  explosion  with  which  his  last  letter 
concluded,  I  fear  that  your  furniture  must 
have  been  smashed.  Such  a  burst  of  indig 
nation  against  the  world  and  fate  was  never 
heard.  I  would  have  loved  dearly  to  have 
written  him  a  ten-page  letter.  My  wishy- 
washy  epistle  might  have  cooled  him.  Well, 
forgive  all  slips  of  imagination,  and  remem 
ber  with  love  your  dear  son 

CHARLEY. 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  HENRY  PERRY  LELAND 

PARIS,  LATIN  QUARTER  (cheap  and  fly ! ) 
le  1 8  Nov.  cold  and  clear. 

MY  OWN  BRAVE  HARRY,  —  God  bless  you 
a  thousand  times  for  your  letter,  dated  no 
thing  at  all,  which  came  by  the  last  steamer. 
I  feel  warmed  to  the  soul  to  think  what  a 
good  friend  I  have  at-home  in  thee.  Oh,  a 
thousand  blessings  on  thy  warm,  true  heart ! 
.  .  .  As  for  my  Polish  business,  it  was  a 
wild,  adventurous,  nightmare  piece  of  busi- 


PARIS  IN    '48  157 

ness  which  makes  me  shudder  when  I  think 
of  it.  Oh,  that  silent,  dead,  ghastly  land,  with 
its  long  dead  levels  and  moaning  pine  forests 
and  mud  —  mud !  It  was  dreary  and  witch- 
like  and  wild.  But  that  delicious  rainy  morn 
ing,  at  four  o'clock,  at  the  mercy  of  a  pack  of 
Russians  in  a  wilderness !  How  jolly  Vienna 
was!  Oh,  the  theatre  and  cafes,  etc.,  etc. 
Won't  I  talk  when  I  return !  And  the  whole 
journey,  helter  skelter,  pipe  in  mouth,  and 
devil  take  the  odds.  Did  n't  we  go  it !  I  was 
the  individ.  as  enjoyed  myself.  Sometimes 
half  dead  with  fatigue,  cold  and  hunger,  and 
then,  plump,  slap  into  the  fat  of  the  land. 
And  such  a  companion !  Did  n't  he  travel  into 
the  tobacco  and  wine  and  beer!  We  took 
Europe  like  a  pie  between  us  and  helped  our 
selves.  Then  came  Berlin,  and  the  American 
students,  and  a  public  ball,  and  all  sorts  of 
fun,  and  the  glorious  gallery,  and  then  Han 
over  and  an  adventure,  and  then  Westphalia, 
and  Cologne,  and  Rotterdam,  and  Amster 
dam.  Holland  is  a  mean  sort  of  a  snobbish 
land,  devilish  dear,  and  I  travelled  through 
it  to  say  I  'd  been  there,  for  it  is  terribly  defi 
cient  in  all  attractions  or  curious  articles.  It 's 
4.  I  'm  off  to  dinner,  cheap  and  common, 


158  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

and  then  —  Don  Giovanni  with  Lablache 
and  Grisi.  Don't  you  (and  don't  /)  wish  you 
were  with  me  ? 

Paris,  Nov.  20,  1847.  I  once  read  a  piece 
taken  from  an  English  magazine  —  I  for 
get  how  they  called  it  —  but  it  was  a  sort 
of  Petites  miseres  de  la  vie  humaine.  Well, 
the  concluding  misfortune  —  the  climax,  in 
fact — was  that,  after  going  to  the  Opera  in 
order  to  forget  the  troubles  of  the  day,  he 
found  a  notice  on  the  door,  "  Madame  Grisi 
is  sick  and  won't  sing."  Such  was  precisely 
my  case  yesterday,  with  the  addition  of  La 
blache,  who  was  also  sick ! ! !  And  we  had 
La  Sonnambula  and  Persiani.  Was  n't  it  a 
do?  Fiacre  to  and  fro  2fr.  1 8  sous.  Ticket 
(pit)  4  francs.  And  is  n't  the  whole  thing  a 
queer  coincidence  ?  Even  the  truth  won't  go 
down  unless  you  draw  it  mild,  and  though 
we  can't  see  without  sunlight,  yet  a  man  may 
be  blinded  with  it.  Moderation  —  Moderation 
—  MODERATION.  I  will  give  you  an  instance  : 
Yesterday  I  was  talking  with  my  invaluable 
Englishman,  who  always  turns  up  wherever 
I  want  him,  in  Heidelberg,  Munich,  or  Paris. 
He  is  not  Pottinger.  Well,  he  was  telling  the 
following  story.  "  When  in  Brussels  I  was  in 


PARIS   IN   '48  159 

the  church,  a  commissionnaire  came  bother 
ing  me ;  I  told  him  to  go  to  the  Devil !  He 
was  really  shocked  at  the  awful  profanity, 
and  said,  *  Sir,  you  are  in  a  church.'"  "  Now," 
said  I,  "  I  had  nearly  the  same  thing  happen 
to  me  in  Padua ;  when  there  a  fellow  came 
troubling  us, and  /told  him, '  Go  to  the  Devil,' 
when  he  replied, '  What !  go  to  the  Devil,  and 
that  in  the  Holy  Week  1 '  "  Now  my  Eng 
lishman  knows  me,  but  if  some  man  had 
trumped  your  story  with  such  a  card,  would  n't 
you  have  doubted  ?  By  Jupiter,  if  one  half  of 
the  travellers  I  meet  had  told  me  so,  I  would 
have  believed  that  the  Holy  Week  story  was 
a  pure  fabrication.  Some  of  the  sentences  in 
your  letter  are  really  beautiful  —  one  or  two 
thrill  me  like  a  church  bell  heard  far,  far 
away  in  the  summer  woods.  I  will  not  tell  you 
which  they  are,  or  you  '11  try  to  reproduce  and 
imitate.  Men  often  kill  themselves  in  writing 
by  doing  a  good  thing  and  then  overdoing  it. 
I  wrote  a  fantasie  lately,  and  then  four  like  it, 
but  only  the  first  was  worth  a  damn.  Unless 
we  work  and  study  and  play  the  devil  with 
Blair  and  Campbell,  and  make  years'  hard 
work  on  Belles  Lettres  (hardly  worth  the  time) 
we  can't  make  a  style.  Better  take  Nature  as 


160  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

she  comes.  ...  A  melancholy  remark  of 
yours, "  Oh,  if  I  had  your  advantages  of  travel, 
how  I  'd  surpass  you."  Beware,  my  friend,  of 
such  thoughts.  If  you  can't  become  a  man  in 
America,  you  never  would  anywhere.  Of  all 
the  young  men  that  I  have  met  abroad,  I  do 
not  think  that  I  have  seen  one  who  could  not 
have  got  as  much  savoir  faire  anywhere  — 
if  he  had  taken  the  same  pains.  Here  are 
young  men,  learning  hard  to  fence,  to  dance, 
passing  brilliant  evenings  in  spirituel conver 
sation  with  lorettes  and  milliners  over  cheap 
wine  punch,  looking  at  the  Cancan  at  the 
Salle  Valentino  or  Prado.  Why,  man,  you  can 
do  all  this  sort  of  thing  in  NewYork.  But  here, 
in  Paris,  the  consciousness  that  they  must 
take  something  home  with  them  impels  them 
to  take  all  these  noble  exertions.  A  fool  al 
ways  remains  a  fool.  The  Continent 's  a  hum 
bug  in  some  things.  If  you  don't  work  here, 
you  '11  go  to  the  ground !  Oh,  don't  believe 
that  you  're  always  .the  innocent  one,  that  if 
destiny  had  only  done  this  or  that,  everything 
would  have  gone  so  smooth.  Va  fen!  I 
often  begin  to  think,  "  Oh,  if —  "  and  bring 
it  up  with  a  short  turn.  How  many  a  man  of 
lesser  talent  with  fewer  advantages  has  done 


PARIS   IN   '48  161 

more !  Why,  the  fellow  had  ingenuity  (i.  e. 
some  tact  and  more  industry)  and  so  he  went 
it.  And  when  the  current  of  luck  once  comes, 
and  belief  in  its  durance,  it  will  endure. 
Don't  think  that  this  abstract  speculation 
and  thinking  of  mine  is  in  vain.  If  a  man 
cannot,  with  Chesterfield,  Rochefoucauld,  and 
such  writings,  become  a  man  of  the  world,  he 
can  at  least  do  the  very  best  half  of  it.  With 
the  mere  bare  objective  practice  he  may  qual 
ify  himself  for  a  dandy,  a  police  agent,  or  per 
haps  diplomat,  but  never  perfect  himself.  I 
speak  knowing,  and  if  you  don't  see  that  my 
assertions  are  grounded  on  unexaggerated 
experience,  you  had  better  put  on  your  cap, 
take  up  your  cane,  and  leave  my  lecture- 
room  !  .  .  . 

I  live  in  the  Quartier  Latin,  near  the 
Sorbonne.  Two  houses  further  on,  and  the 
Rue  d'Enfer  begins  —  for  I  live  on  an  open 
place,  "  Place  St.  Michel."  To  the  right  of 
the  triangle  "  Place  "  (I  live  on  the  base)  is  a 
cafe,  cigar-shop,  etc.  I  am  smack  among  the 
studios  here,  young  men  in  red  handkerchiefs 
who  smoke  penny  pipes  and  play  billiards, 
and  have,  every  living  soul,  a  mistress.  There 
is  an  air  of  rakish  fastness  about  them,  and 


162  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

I  verily  believe  that  they  enjoy  life  as  no 
human  beings  do.  The  great  amusement  of 
the  students  is  to  go  to  the  balls,  Valentino 
or  Prado,  etc.,  etc.,  in  summer,  Mabille  and 
Chateau  Rouge  in  winter.  Here  you  have 
splendid  saloons,  and  everybody  keeps  on  his 
hat  and  smokes,  and  picks  up  partners  for 
the  evening.  Here  the  Cancan  is  in  all  its 
glory.  I  have  danced  at  Chateau  Rouge,  and 
went  once  to  the  Valentino.  Prefer  looking 
other  ways  for  adventures.  Money  is  the 
great  thing  in  Paris,  but  in  Germany  people 
only  regard  the  man  himself.  And  in  Paris 
common  sense  will  help  as  much  as  money. 
One  can  do  more  here  with  money  and  com 
mon  sense  than  anywhere  else.  It  is  Sunday 
—  but  if  any  human  being  could  find  it  out  by 
what  the  people  are  at,  he  would  be  a  keen 
one.  Here  comes  my  English  friend  singing 
"  Es  war  einmals  ein  Madchen  "  (There  was 
once  a  maiden),  an  affecting  German  ballad, 
how  the  devil  came  riding  on  a  snow-white 
horse,  and  carried  her  off. 

Monday.  I  went  to  the  Hotel  Cluny  yes 
terday,  a  Gothic  building  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
filled  with  arms  and  mediaeval  antiquities.  A 
part  of  the  same  building  is  the  ruins  of  a 


PARIS   IN  '48  163 

Roman  Thermae,  or  bathing  establishment. 
Very  recently  they  have  discovered,  just  be 
fore  the  door  of  Notre  Dame,  Roman  ruins 
only  a  few  feet  below  the  level  of  the  earth. 
I  have  seen  them.  As  the  paper  says,  twelve 
workmen  are  employed  in  disinterring  that 
which  four  and  twenty  savans  will  dispute 
over.  Roman  coins  and  lots  of  " os"  have 
been  discovered,  among  the  latter  a  crooked 
backbone,  sagely  supposed  to  be  that  of 
Quasimodo.  The  theatres  and  operas  do  not 
much  frighten  me  by  their  size  and  richness 
(I  have  been  in  Italy),  and  as  for  their  instru 
mental  music,  though  good,  it  wants  the  soul 
of  the  Germans'  music.  One  bad  little  Ger 
man  band  always  seems  to  me  better  than 
a  large  French  one,  just  as  a  little  violet  is 
worth  more  than  a  shopful  of  artificial  flowers 
to  a  true  lover  of  the  beautiful.  That  strange 
feeling  of  God  in  all,  of  the  Infinite,  is  every 
where  in  Germany.  It  works  and  weaves  it 
self  everywhere  and  among  all  things.  Oh, 
my  good,  honest,  spiritual  smokers!  Ger 
manism,  that  mysterious  wonderful  spirit, 
impresses  itself  on  every  one  who  lives  un 
prejudiced  in  that  country.  Here  am  I,  and 
my  Anglais,  who,  as  dry  and  unenthusiastic  a 


164  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

man  as  ever  lived,  is  nevertheless  moved  to 
the  very  soul  when  anything  German  turns 
up,  and  his  spirit  seems  vibrated  with  dreamy 
music  when  I  speak  to  him  of  Heidelberg, 
the  rushing  Neckar,  its  old  castles,  and  our 
Burschen  life  with  all  its  lights  and  shadows. 
"  Oh,  were  I  in  my  Fatherland  ! "  What  a 
wild,  reckless,  careless,  cap-on-one-side  sort 
of  a  life!  At  22  I  became  a  boy  again,  and  as 
much  again  a  man,  and  all  was  bright  and 
beautiful.  I  counted  six  women  in  the  theatre, 
the  other  day,  weeping  at  the  sorrows  of  a 
heroine !  Oh  ye  French !  I  went  into  La 
Morgue  the  other  morning,  two  drowned  ones 
there.  Frank  Fisher  has  predicted  a  speedy 
death  for  me,  ist,  because  I  loaf  at  midnight 
through  the  Quartier  St.  Antoine  and  Quar- 
tier  Latin;  2dly,  because  I  drink  beer;  3dly, 
because  my  room  has  no  carpet ;  4thly,  gen 
eral  imprudence.  He  is,  as  a  medecin,  very 
careful  of  himself.  I  only  feel  unwell  when  I 
have  the  blues.  Ennui  would  kill  me  in  six 
months.  As  long  as  I  can  find  excitement 
and  pleasure,  my  health  will  be  good.  I  shall, 
in  company  with  you,  work  my  few  wits 
keenly  when  I  return  to  America.  Remem 
ber  —  no  faineant  spirit  —  none  of  your  old 


PARIS   IN   '48  165 

leaven.  Adventures  are  for  the  adventurous, 
but  can't  often  be  worked  without  an  accom 
plice.  I  have,  according  to  a  friend,  a  most 
extraordinary  talent  for  getting  into  singular 
adventures.  I  effect  it  by  driving  in  and 
trusting  to  a  tact,  which  has  never  deceived 
me,  for  getting  out.  I  speak  egotistically,  but 
truly  —  not  from  imagination,  but  from  the 
memory  of  many  a  wild  adventure  in  great 
continental  cities.  I  tell  you  that  nothing 
which  you  find  in  the  French  feuilletons  is 
to  be  doubted.  I  tell  you,  coolly  and  dispas 
sionately,  that  Paul  de  Kock,  so  far  from 
giving  overdrawn  or  exaggerated  pictures  of 
Paris  life,  has  confined  himself  to  very  strict 
and  literal  truth.  Gustave,  etc.,  are  so  remark 
ably  lifelike,  that  I  suppose  he  has  generally 
merely  narrated  incidents  which  have  really 
happened.  People  who  make  no  study  of 
human  nature,  and  who  take  the  world  as  it 
comes,  will  tell  you  that  this  is  all  humbug. 
For  commonplace  people  this  world  is  very 
commonplace.  It  is  only  the  collector  of 
strange  coins  who  ever  has  them  passed  off 
on  him  for  pence.  Anybody  else  may  look  over 
his  small  change  daily  for  six  months,  with 
out  finding  anything  as  much  out  of  the  way 


1 66  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

as  an  English  ha'penny.  "  To  him  who  hath 
shall  be  given  "  is  a  deep  mystery,  capable  of 
infinite  application.  What  do  you  think  on  the 
subject,  young  brother?  What  do  you  ever 
think  about  my  advice  at  all  ?  "  Demd  foine, 
pawn  hon'r !  "  Either  pride  or  profit  (Roche 
foucauld,  Maxim  173)  is  at  the  bottom  of  our 
actions,  and  in  writing  you  these  letters, 
though  possibly  vanity  may  inspire  me  more 
than  a  little,  my  principal  object  is  to  formu 
late  my  own  thoughts,  discipline  my  own 
mind,  and  teach  myself  what  I  know.  There 
now,  there 's  a  lick.  Maybe  you  are  like  a 
woman,  treat  you  cavalierly  and  you  '11  begin 
to  be  more  attentive.  The  very  disagreeable 
thing  in  Paris  is  the  brouillard,  or  fog.  We 
have  them  here  so  thick  that  at  night  you 
are  always,  despite  the  numerous  gas  lights, 
in  darkness,  and  for  a  stranger  they  are  more 
than  annoying,  literally  distressing.  Streets 
are  miserably  muddy  in  Paris.  The  French 
are  a  damned  dirty  people.  Germans  very 
clean  in  their  houses,  much  more  so  than 
Americans,  and  not  less  so,  on  the  whole,  in 
their  persons.  Dr.  Waagen,  whose  work  on 
Rubens  you  read,  is  Professor  in  the  Un.  of 
Berlin.  Last  semester,  his  lectures  were  only 


PARIS   IN   '48  167 

paid  for  by  six  Americans,  among  them  my 
gobd  friend  Ward,  and  one  German.  He  is 
a  very  talented  man. 

If  you  would  like  to  know  anything  about 
my  looks,  I  can  tell  you  I  have  grown  rather 
large,  am  still  utterly  incapable  of  always  look 
ing  dressed  up,  am  very  far  from  a  dandy. 
.  .  .  Oh,  Jupiter,  my  boy,  what  can  I  branch 
off  on  next  ?  I  want  very  much  to  tell  about 
Paris  and  adventure,  etc.  Memory  spreadeth 
not  her  broad  wing  over  my  soul ;  Fantasie, 
the  silver-winged,  swims  not  from  her  home, 
in  the  gold  and  purple  East,  to  breathe  into 
the  spirit  of  her  adorer  that  inspiration  which 
he  longs  for  to  please  his  little  brother  Henry 
with.  I  wrote  the  last  sentence  to  the  tune 
of  a  hand-organ  under  my  window.  See  if 
there  be  music  in  it.  There,  that 's  a  witty, 
overstrained  fantasie  in  the  transition  style, 
a  little  in  your  own  manner.  It 's  growing 
nebulous,  about  4  p.  M.,  and  in  a  few  seconds 
I  ought  to  light  my  candle.  Well,  Henry,  I 
want  you  really  to  be  industrious.  If  you 
won't  be  so  in  books,  study  industriously  the 
great  volume  of  human  life !  which  is  the 
hardest  of  the  two,  for  you  must  do  what  is 
for  you  very  hard  —  control  yourself.  Learn 


1 68  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

all  my  maxims,  get  rid  of  all  boyish  Philister- 
like  ideas  you  ever  had,  particularly  those 
about  me,  and  consider  me  as  a  man,  a  new 
acquaintance,  and  we  '11  be  good  friends. 

HOTEL  DU  LUXEMBOURG,  Dec.  20, 
Vis  a  vis  au  Palais  de  Cluny,  Rue  de  la  Harpe, 
Quartier  Latin. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  There  you  have  it,  grand 
and  magnificent,  and  every  word  true.  But 
ah  !  how  werry  deceitful  is  them  appearances ! 
One  would  really  think  that  your  brother  was 
the  chosen  one  of  princes  from  the  magnifi 
cent  heading  of  his  letter.  But  princes  dorit 
live  in  the  Latin  Quarter,  and  the  whole  thing 
is  "  calculated  to  deceive."  Another  phase  in 
Arthur  O'Leary  is  realized.  In  the  Rue  de 
la  Harpe  (described  in  the  "  Almanach  des 
Grisettes  "  as  the  street  of  the  real  Paris  stu 
dent),  you  see  the  Quartier  Latin  in  all  its 
glory  and  filth !  The  houses  are  older,  the 
stones  rougher  (for  the  narrowness  of  the 
street  precludes  trottoirs,  or  sidewalks,  in 
most  places),  the  mud  deeper,  the  restaurants 
cheaper,  the  estaminets  and  cafes  more  fre 
quent  than  in  any  other  part  of  Paris.  And 
just  exactly  in  that  part  of  the  street  where 


PARIS   IN   '48  169 

the  houses  are  the  oldest,  the  stones  roughest, 
the  mud  deepest,  and  the  restaurants  cheap 
est,  rises  the  Roman  ruin  of  the  Thermae,  or 
Baths,  on  the  other  side  of  which  is  a  beauti 
ful  Gothic  building.  But  the  Roman  side  is 
a  mere  gloomy  looking  den.  Nearly  opposite, 
from  the  vile  black  mud,  rise  a  lot  of  squalid 
looking  houses,  God  knows  how  many  stories 
high,  dingy  with  age  and  dirt.  The  dirtiest 
of  those  houses,  which  looks  outside  like  a 
sailor  boarding-house  of  the  lowest  class,  is 
the  Grand  Hotel  du  Luxembourg,  No.  62, 
where  I  live.  It  looks  most  uncommon  nasty, 
and  that 's  a  fact,  with  its  low,  narrow  porte 
cockere.  Well,  enter.  Get  up  to  the  premier 
etage,  open  the  first  door  and  an  ordinary 
small  bedroom  presents  itself,  —  habitable 
enough,  but  nothing  extra.  Then  open  an 
other  door,  and  you  are  in  my  den,  the  most 
comfortable  looking,  loafer  looking,  large, 
handsome  bedroom  I  ever  had.  It  is  real  out 
and  out  bachelor,  as  nice  as  be  damned.  I 
have  three  arm  chairs  in  red  velvet,  four 
common  chairs  in  red  something,  a  fine  sofa 
in  red  velvet,  a  fine  clock,  etc.,  etc.  My  pipes 
ornament  one  side  of  the  room,  my  duellers 
hang  on  each  side  of  my  glass,  I  Ve  got  a  car- 


1 70  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

pet,  and  a  bed  which  looks  like  the  marquee 
of  a  major.  Well  now,  I  'm  down  to  write,  and 
I'll  begin!  I've  got  much,  and  yet  very 
little,  to  relate  or  spin  out.  I  'm  hard  on 
the  ^Esthetic  studies,  and  amusing  myself 
blessed  little.  I  have  ceased  amusing  myself, 
and  am  now  desperately  determined  to  get 
up  a  good  work  on  Esthetics.  As  for  writ 
ing,  you  have  lost  two  letters  from  me.  You 
speak  of  my  letters  giving  me  entree  into  so 
ciety.  I  would  like  to  know  what  letters  you 
mean.  I  had  one  to  a  M.  Morlot  from  a  M. 
Bujac.  Well,  I  called  on  him,  delivered  it, 
and,  after  talking  with  him,  went,  and  have 
never  heard  of  him.  That  is  genuine  French 
—  they  never  care  a  curse  for  a  man  who 
does  n't  come  the  grande  figure.  I  have  one 
left  to  Prof.  Pouillet,  a  great  man  here,  from 
Prof.  Henry.  A  great  deal  of  fuss  was  made 
about  this  letter.  Well,  Henry  introduces  me 
as  a  young  gentleman  who  intends  attending 
his  lectures.  I  'd  see  him  damned  first.  Now 

there  remain  two  to  Mr. ,  a  sneak  who 

insults  people  gratuitously,  expects  you  to 
bow  before  him,  and  prove  your  aristocracy. 
I  '11  rest  in  the  society  of  students  and  mil 
liners  first.  All  the  Americans  abroad  are 


PARIS   IN   '48  171 

busied  with  "getting  into  society,"  getting 
"  presented  to  the  King,"  and  raising  all  hell 
in  order  to  do  something  to  brag  about  when 
they  get  home.  Before  I  '11  put  up  with  the 
airs  of  a  set  of  people  I  have  no  sympathy 
with,  I  '11  live  alone.  I  know  perfectly  well 
that  I  can  walk  into  their  astonishment  knee 
deep  when  I  try,  for  if  ever  man  had  brass 
and  experience  the  Chevalier  has,  and  no 
fear  in  any  society.  The  only  evening  party 
I  've  been  to  in  Paris  consisted  of  six  kept 
mistresses  and  two  men,  where  they  played 
vingt-et-un  for  sous,  and  I  went  to  sleep  on 
the  sofa,  and  afterwards  waltzed  to  the  piano 
forte,  and  tried  to  learn  that  foolish  dance, 
the  cancan.  Just  now  I  'm  living  quiet.  I  'm 
blase,  without  affectation.  I  'm  hard  up  for 
tin  also.  I  like  to  meet  with  an  American 
who  has  never  travelled.  I  don't  care  who  or 
what  he  is.  If  I  can't  put  my  thumb  on  him, 
then  I  'm  an  idle  boaster. 

Shall  I  describe  ?  The  lorettes  in  Paris  at 
present  wear  their  hair  down  over  their  eyes. 
They  all  smoke  cigars.  In  a  great  ball  you 
see  many  pretty,  but  still  as  many  interest 
ing,  or  piquant  looking  girls.  Let  me  intro 
duce  you  to  my  English  friend,  Mr.  Field. 


CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

He  is  sitting  by  me.  We  have  studied  to 
gether  in  Heidelberg,  drunk  beer  in  Munich, 
and  "gone  it"  in  Paris.  He  studies  " droit" 
or  law,  speaks  German  like  a  native,  etc. 
What  days  we  have  seen  together ! 

I  must  close  abruptly.  A  long  letter  from 
Germany  and  the  arrival  of  Pottinger,  with 
divers  business,  hinder  me  from  continuing. 
But  I  must  first  narrate  a  little  incident.  I 
am  much  loved  by  dogs.  Last  night,  as  I 
was  coming  home  at  about  12.30,  over  the 
Pont  Neuf,  up  the  Rue  Dauphine,  a  beauti 
ful  little  terrier  dog  followed  me.  He  came 
after  me  up  into  my  room,  and  when  I  took 
a  good  look  at  him,  went  down  on  his  knees, 
or  rather  up  on  his  legs,  in  a  good  attitude. 
So  I  gave  him  a  room  and  a  bed,  and  this 
morning,  after  paying  his  respects  to  me  on 
his  hind  legs,  bolted.  All  well,  write  soon. 

CHARLES. 

PARIS,  Jan.  2,  1848. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  The  red  wine  punch  is 
on  the  fire,  Pottinger  is  blowing  away  with 
the  bellows  and  quoting  from  Ausonius.  .  .  . 
Your  letter  was  received  yesterday  evening. 
Many  hearty  thanks.  If  I  have  anything  to 


PARIS  IN   '48  173 

console  me  in  going  to  VAm'erique,  it  is  the 
reflection  that  you  are  there.  Pottinger  is 
here  to  spend  Christmas;  the  old  stager  is 
no  stranger,  however,  in  Paris.  He  is  the 
man  who  really  never  read  one  of  Scott's 
novels.  But  what  an  abyss  of  erudition  and 
talent,  common  sense  and  savoirfaire  !  Well, 
the  ponche  au  vin  is  ready.  One  bottle  Bur 
gundy  (one  franc),  sugar,  lemons,  eau-de-vie, 
and  cigarettes  at  five  sous  a  dozen !  My  only 
real  weakness  now  is  a  petit  verre  and  cafe. 
No  fear  of  the  cholera.  Paris  is  just  now  full 
of  mud  and,  as  the  masked  balls  have  just 
begun,  is  as  blackguard  as  the  Coal  Hole ! 
You  can  have  no  idea  of  real,  pure,  unmiti 
gated  rowdyism  until  you  have  been  to  a  bal 
masque  in  the  Prado.  After  beginning  this 
letter  I  went  to  one  in  the  Odeon  —  I  mean 
a  masked  ball. 

One  thing  at  a  time  —  the  fly  thing  just 
now  in  Paris  is  to  wear  a  white  paletot,  bottes 
vernies  (patent  leather  shiny),  the  great  test 
of  dress  aristocracy,  a  really  good  hat,  a 
common  black  eye-glass  with  a  finger-broad 
ribbon,  and  black  gloves  —  full  gaiters  are 
allowed  and  a  very  long  waistcoat.  The  two 
reines  de  bal  now  are  named  Frisette  and 


174  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Rigolette.  They  are  not  pretty,  but  dance 
well.  The  Odeon  ball  began  at  12  o'clock, 
and  an  immense  crowd,  masked  and  un 
masked,  surrounded  the  theatre.  The  men 
are  generally  dressed  as  Pierrots,  in  full  white 
cotton  trousers,  and  a  sort  of  blouse  do.  with 
red  ribbons,  and  buttons  as  large  as  an  or 
ange.  The  women,  with  full  velvet  trousers, 
man's  shirt  and  neckcloth,  and  a  sash  round 
the  waist. 

I  'm  very  quiet  now,  working  on  Esthetics. 
Paris  is  not  half  as  jolly  as  Germany,  al 
though  it  produces  wonderful  impressions  on 
freshly  arrived  Americans.  What  I  told  you 
long  ago  in  a  letter  about  the  superiority  of 
the  quiet  German  cities  to  Paris  is  true.  Ex 
perience  confirms  me  in  it.  ...  The  great 
song  in  Paris  now  is  the  chorus  of  the  "  Gi- 
rondins,"  a  play  which  has  had  139  repre 
sentations.  The  Latin  Quarter  rings  with  it, 
and  when  I  awoke  at  five  this  morning,  a 
drunken  crowd  of  students  passed  my  house 
singing  it.  ...  I  wish  I  could  take  you  into 
my  cafe  de  la  Rotonde,  corner  of  the  Rue  de 
1'ficole  de  Medecine  and  the  Rue  de  Haute- 
feuille.  There  you  see  the  world,  and  if  you 
drop  in  at  six  p.  M.,  may  behold  ME  drinking 


PARIS   IN   '48  175 

coffee  and  eau  sucree,  and  reading  the  "  Cor- 
saire,"  "  Charivari,"  "  Deutsche  Zeitung," 
"Daily  News."  The  "  Corsaire "  is  the  fly, 
spicy  paper  of  Paris.  The  cafe  de  Mille 
Colonnes  in  the  Palais  Royal  is  all  very  well, 
but  there  are  no  cafes  in  Paris  to  be  com 
pared  with  those  I  have  seen  elsewhere.  The 
Cafe  de  Danemark  is  a  favourite  hole  of 
"  ours."  In  the  second  storey  of  my  cafe 
(Rotonde)  is  a  billiard  room  frequented  by 
students  and  their  girls.  Students'  women 
all  smoke.  I  like  to  see  a  regular  dragon  fini 
puffing  away. 

C'est  ma  Nini,  c'est  ma  Nini, 
Dieu  !  qu'elle  est  gentille. 
C'est  ma  Nini  —  dragon  fini, 
Dieu,  quelle  bonne  fille  ! 
Au  soir  au  bal  vous  la  voyez 
Chahutant,  le  poing  sur  la  hanche, 
Les  cotillons,  tous  voltigeans, 
Elle  est  encore  la  plus  char-man-te ! 

The  tune  of  this  chansonette  is  really  very 
fine.  Students  are  very  different  boys  from 
thejeunesse  doree,  who  promenade  the  Boule 
vards.  Germany,  thank  God,  has  a  very 
small  proportion  of  the  latter  article  out  of 
Austria. 

The  Seine  is  a  very  mean  little  river,  and 


1 76  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

only  has  the  good  quality  of  having  good 
water.  And  now  I  have  seen  many  rivers,  — 
the  Rhone,  the  Rhine,  the  Oder,  the  Weser, 
the  Elbe,  the  Moselle,  the  Main,  the  Neckar, 
the  Danube,  the  Iser  rolling  rapidly,  the 
Inn,  the  Meuse,  the  "  lazy  Skelt,"  or  Escault 
(French),  the  Somme,  the  Oise.  In  the 
Schweiz,  the  Rhine  and  Rhone  again !  In 
Italy,  the  Po,  the  Adige,  the  Brenta,  the 
Piave,  the  Arno,  the  Tiber.  There  is  a  string 
for  you,  and  yet  I  forgot  the  Moldau  by  Prague. 
And  I  would  fain  be  by  the  Iser  strand  — 
Bei  der  Isar  strand,  dort  ist  mein  Vater- 
land.  Pottinger  thinks  that  Munich  is  "  the 
finest  old  nest  in  Europe,"  and  I  coincide. 
There  is  a  wholesale  heartiness  in  Bavarian 
life  in  Munich,  in  Fine  Arts  and  Beer  and 
Tobacco. 

It  seems  rather  queer  that  you  said  nothing 
to  me  about  George  Boker's  poems  beyond 
putting,  or  pasting,  in  the  advertisement. 
You  do  hate  to  take  pains  in  writing  a  letter. 
Tell  me  at  least  the  titles  of  his  poems  and 
if  they  are  good.  Don't  try  so  awfully  hard 
to  be  brilliant  in  your  letters,  and  do  stop 
punning.  I  like  to  find  amusement  in  quaint- 
ness,  in  fantaisie,  but  hate  any  attempt  at 


PARIS   IN   '48  177 

fly,  spicy,  N.  P.  Willis  sort  of  writing.  It 
looks  so  very  "  gentish,"  and  savours  to  me 
of  cheap  shooting  jackets  and  glass-headed 
canes  "out  for  the  day  on  Sunday."  I  am 
convinced  that  nobody  can  make  poetry.  I 
am  very  glad  indeed  that  the  little  Berner 
song  pleases  you  so  much.  I  wrote  it  quite 
naturally,  merely  putting  a  few  real  feelings 
into  rhyme!  I  was  all  alone.  I  had  a  hard 
time  of  it  when  I  came  from  Geneva  to 
Berne.  I  was  sick  all  night  in  the  diligence, 
and  felt  as  if  I  was  going  to  be  "sicker  of 
being  sicker."  Well,  I  got  into  Berne  all 
alone,  and  stayed  a  day  or  two  lonelier  than 
ever.  I  'm  used  to  that  sort  of  thing  now,  but 
then  it  was  new  to  me.  I  felt  rather  glad  at 
finding  an  old  German  gentleman  in  Bale 
whom  I  had  met  in  Florence.  One  meets 
people  everywhere  in  Europe.  I  met  Harry 
Smith  of  Philadelphia  a  few  days  ago  in  the 
Champs-Elysees.  .  .  . 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  MRS.  CHARLES  LELAND 

PARIS,  le  4  Janvier,  1848. 

MY  DEAR  MOTHER,  —  If  anything  would  in 
duce  a  man  to  answer  a  letter  promptly,  it 


1 78  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

would  be  the  receipt  of  such  a  one  as  your 
last,  which  really  comforted  and  warmed  my 
heart  for  two  entire  frosty  days.  I  am  glad 
that  I  gave  you  some  account  of  the  beautiful 
Elbe  —  that  truly  enchanted  river  —  with  its 
wild  cliffs,  green  forests,  and  robber  castles. 
And  still  more  comforting  is  the  idea  that  I 
can  never  write  again  as  well  as  I  did  in  those 
wretched  letters  of  mine,  which  Aunty  Hale 
has  been  publishing  for  the  benefit  and  in 
struction  of  mankind.  If  I  dorit  write  better 
—  break  my  meerschaum  —  that 's  all !  The 
cholera,  I  suppose,  will  give  me  the  go-by. 
Don't  be  alarmed  about  it ;  nobody  is  here. 
We  have  just  heard  that  in  Poland  and  Silesia 
it  is  extremely  mild.  As  for  the  rest,  the  only 
cases  of  cholera  that  have  appeared  in  Paris 
were  in  reality  nothing  but  cholera  morbus,  or 
something  of  the  sort.  Paris  is  a  pleasant 
town  enough,  but  not  to  be  named  in  the 
same  day  with  Vienna  or  Berlin  as  a  pleasant 
place  of  residence.  I  shall  never  recover  Ger 
many,  nor  do  I  know  a  single  person  who  has 
lived  in  Germany  who  does  not  prefer  it  to 
any  other  country.  There  is  the  most  singu 
lar  unaccountable  fascination  about  Germany 
that  man  can  imagine,  and  my  English  travel- 


PARIS   IN   '48  179 

ling  friend,  who  had  come  to  Paris  to  spend 
his  Christmas  vacation,  wants  to  go  to  Ger 
many  instead.  The  weather  in  Paris,  from 
being  foggy,  has  become  clear  and  cold,  very 
cold  sometimes.  My  health  continues  very 
good  indeed,  and  I  am  quite  comfortable. 
All  Paris  is  crazy  now  with  the  masked  balls. 
I  have  seen  them  in  Italy  and  Germany,  and 
prefer  the  German  to  the  French.  The  Paris 
masked  balls  are  altogether  too  blackguard, 
whereas  the  Germans,  though  bad  enough, 
always  behave  quietly  and  decently.  I  am  glad 
also  to  hear  so  much  about  sisters  in  your 
present  letters.  Poor  little  Charlotte  seems 
to  keep  quite  in  the  background,  but  never 
mind,  I  shall  soon  see  them,  and  it  will  be 
delightful.  If  you  want  to  entice  me  home, 
you  can  do  it  best  by  telling  me  about  Henry 
and  the  girls. 

When  I  take  to  letter  writing  in  Paris,  I 
always  feel  more  like  going  over  some  of  the 
scenes  of  my  past  travels  than  describing  the 
lions  here.  The  Tuileries,  and  Luxembourg, 
and  Place  Vendome,  and  so  on,  are  all  sur 
passed  by  other  buildings  in  other  places, 
—  just  as  the  men  who  dwell  around  them 
are  by  almost  any  other  civilized  people. 


i8o  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Whether  a  Frenchman  be  more  monkey  or 
devil  is  a  problem  as  difficult  as  ever  to  solve. 
The  most  astonishing  thing  in  their  charac 
ter  is  the  fondness  for  rushing  into  cafes  and 
spending  the  whole  day  in  drinking  sugar 
water,  reading  papers,  playing  chess  and 
dominoes,  etc.  It  is  strange  enough  when 
we  consider,  after  all,  how  much  a  man's  na 
ture  depends  upon  the  society  he  is  brought 
up  in,  and  how  very  happy  people  would  be 
in  this  world  if  they  did  not  trouble  them 
selves  about  the  little  mean  restrictions  of 
society  and  fear  of  ridicule  and  so  on.  The 
great  advantage  of  travelling  is,  that  it  teaches 
a  man,  better  than  anything,  the  true  value 
of  people's  notions  on  different  subjects,  and 
keeps  him  from  attaching  undue  importance 
to  anything  (except  indeed  MONEY).  It  is 
terribly  apt,  indeed,  to  induce  a  sort  of  good- 
humoured  Epicureanism  —  not  indeed  by 
making  him  fond  of  pleasure  —  rather  the 
other  way  —  but  in  making  him  feel  the  re 
ality  of  this  world  more  than  ever.  The  most 
disgusting  thing  in  France  (in  a  small  way)  is 
the  way  you  are  obliged  to  dress.  The  poorest 
here  must  and  will  be  wretched  without  fine 
clothes,  and  we  Americans  are  not  one  whit 


PARIS   IN   '48  181 

better.  New  hats  and  new  bonnets,  new 
coats  and  new  boots ! !  Now,  in  Germany, 
there  is  not  one  city,  Vienna,  Berlin,  Munich, 
Hanover,  Dresden,  where  I  would  not  go 
into  the  streets  with  an  old  shooting  jacket 
on  and  a  pipe  in  my  mouth.  In  Munich,  I 
was  no  more  uneasy  in  the  street  than  in 
my  own  room.  Now  I  verily  believe  that 
the  secret  of  German  happiness  consists  in 
the  fact  that  there  is  no  land  in  the  world 
where  people  trouble  themselves  so  little 
about  appearances.  Here,  in  Paris,  if  you 
haven't  a  fine  room  in  a  fine  quarter  you  are 
nobody.  In  Germany,  people  felt  rather  in 
clined  to  laugh  me  out,  if  I  had  a  fine  room. 
The  Germans  are  all  poor,  and  consequently 
are  more  charitable  to  the  poor.  But  I  must 
really  stop  talking  about  Germany.  There  is 
a  crowd  here,  my  three  friends,  all  ex-German 
students,  who  assemble  in  my  room  round 
the  fire,  each  with  a  long  pipe,  and  praise 
Germany !  I  wish  I  could  make  a  good  pic 
ture  of  them,  with  a  great  German  beer 
schoppen  in  the  middle.  Well,  I  must  really 
get  to  talking  about  something  worth  hear 
ing.  One  of  the  most  agreeable  places  in 
Paris  is  the  gallery  of  the  Louvre,  there  are 


182  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

such  splendid  pictures.  I  have  seen  the 
greater  part  of  all  the  fine  pictures  in  the 
world,  and  have  studied  and  read  much  on 
the  subject  so  as  not  to  speak  ignorantly.  If 
you  want  to  know  the  finest  picture  in  the 
world,  it  is  the  Madonna  del  Sisto  in  Dres 
den,  and  not  the  Transfiguration  in  Rome ; 
both  are  by  Raphael.  [How  the  standards 
have  changed  since  '48  !  ]  I  remember  of  old 
your  liking  for  pictures,  and  wish  you  could 
visit  the  Louvre  and  Luxembourg  galleries 
here.  I  don't  like  the  pictures  of  David  and 
the  French  school.  After  the  Italian  beauty 
and  German  soul,  they  come  like  ice  and 
stone.  But  some  of  the  Raphaels  here  are 
superb.  I  saw  in  Holland  and  Belgium  some 
very  fine  pictures.  When  I  undertake  to 
write  a  letter,  my  mind  seems  always  changed 
into  a  sort  of  panorama.  All  the  scenes  and 
cities  that  I  have  passed  through  run  through 
my  mind,  and  produce  an  effect  strikingly 
like  that  of  trying  to  remember  a  melodrama 
the  day  after.  I  can  always  recall  the  de 
lightful  impressions  myself,  but  can  never 
transfer  them.  Then  there  is  always  such  a 
delicious  blending,  such  a  fusion  of  recollec 
tions  and  ideas,  such  an  embrace  of  memory 


PARIS   IN    '48  183 

and  imagination,  that  I  really  sometimes  be 
gin  to  believe  that  I  have  been  in  Turkey  or 
China,  and  asked  Pottinger  the  other  day  if 
we  had  n't  touched  on  the  river  Vistula  some 
where  in  our  wanderings.  Now,  for  instance, 
I  can  imagine  myself  high  up  in  the  old 
cathedral  of  Strasburg,  looking  down  on  the 
strange  old  city,  with  its  high  gable  roofs 
and  quaint  chimneys,  with  hundreds  of 
storks  flying  over  them.  In  all  old  German 
towns  the  storks  build  their  nests  in  the 
chimney.  The  people  believe  that  they  bring 
good  luck  (and  the  young  German  children 
all  believe  that  it  was  the  good  stork  who 
tried  to  pull  the  nails  out  of  Christ's  hands 
and  feet,  when  crucified).  Well,  I  never  for 
get  that  view,  any  more  than  I  can  the  blue 
Alsatian  hills  which  stretch  far  away  beyond. 
You  can  see  this  cathedral  for  at  least  sixty 
or  seventy  miles.  I  have  seen  it  from  Baden, 
and  from  its  summit  you  can  count  hundreds 
of  cities,  towns  and  villages.  It  is  the  tallest, 
and,  to  my  taste,  the  finest  Gothic  church  in 
the  world.  Then  I  think .  of  Venice,  of  the 
canals,  moonlight  and  gondolas,  Paolo  Ver 
onese,  and  the  St.  Mark's  Church,  and  Doge's 
Palace,  with  its  semi-oriental  splendour.  Of 


1 84  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

all  my  travels,  no  one  part  seems  so  thor 
oughly  dreamlike  —  fairylike  —  or  beautiful, 
as  the  two  weeks  I  spent  in  Venice.  I  should 
never  have  tired  of  it,  and  even  now  I  can 
hardly  realize  that  I  have  dwelt  in  the  "  City 
of  the  Sea."  The  never-ceasing  "  wash "  of 
the  water  in  the  canals,  the  delightful  slide 
of  the  gondola  through  the  water,  the  palaces 
and  galleries  and  the  delightful  fun  of  walk 
ing  about  the  St.  Mark's  place,  were  all  as 
peculiar  as  pleasant.  I  remember  once  (pro 
fane  Yankee  that  I  was)  being  shown  the 
stone  chair  of  St.  Mark  and  sitting  down  in 
it,  in  order  to  find  if  its  holiness  would  have 
any  effect.  Alas,  it  just  didn't!  And  then 
there  were  the  smugglers  who  sold  Maltese 
cigars,  etc.  Now  my  mind  jumps  to  Bologna, 
with  its  sausages,  and  portico  houses,  all 
joining  one  another,  and  its  Sta.  Cecilia  of 
Raphael,  and  Ferrara,  as  solitary  and  forlorn 
as  an  empty  stable,  and  Rome,  the  desolate 
Queen  of  Cities,  the  proud,  the  imperial,  the 
beautiful,  and  Florence  the  delightful,  for  I 
certainly  was  there,  what  I  always  have  been 
everywhere  in  Europe,  happy,  contented  and 
satisfied.  When  I  was  alone  I  reflected,  and 
when  in  company  I  ran  round  and  talked. 


PARIS   IN    '48  185 

Oh  my!  Italy  and  Switzerland,  Mont  Blanc 
and  Prussia,  Poland  and  Paris,  Munich  and 
Gibraltar,  what  a  phantasmagoria !  Well,  do 
excuse  this  very  stupid  letter ;  my  next  shall 
be  as  long,  and,  if  the  fairy  who  guards  me 
will,  it  shall  be  a  little  more  interesting.  My 
very  best  love  to  Father,  assure  him  of  my 
love  and  kindest  feeling,  —  he  knows  well 
how  I  feel  towards  him.  Love  to  the  girls, 
especially  to  dear  little  Emmy  (do  tell  me  if 
she  is  very  pretty),  and  love  to  Henry.  Love 
to  all  who  enquire  after  me.  Write  soon,  as 
you  did  in  your  last,  and  believe  me  to  be 
Your  affectionate  son 

CHARLEY. 

CHARLES   GODFREY    LELAND   TO   CHARLES   LELAND 

H6TEL  DU  LUXEMBOURG,  PARIS, 
Feb.  29,  1848. 

DEAR  FATHER,  —  When  I  wrote  last  our 
Revolution  was  just  beginning.  The  day  be 
fore,  popular  demonstrations  had  taken  place 
and  everything  portended  that,  whether 
the  Liberals  held  their  banquet  or  not,  and 
whether  the  ministers  interfered  or  not,  a 
great  riot  at  least  was  to  be  apprehended; 
when  my  letter  went  to  post,  however,  con- 


1 86     CHARLES   GODFREY  LELAND 

flicts  were  just  taking  place  and  sharp  firing 
going  on  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine.  On 
the  22d,  gunsmiths'  shops  had  been  plun 
dered,  a  few  individuals  killed  and  wounded 
by  the  cavalry,  and  several  barricades  begun. 
After  sending  my  letter,  I  went  to  the  Faub. 
St.  Antoine,  saw  the  people,  who  were  very 
indifferently  armed,  sang  and  cried  Vive  la 
reforme!  with  them.  Just  as  we  turned  a 
corner,  several  platoons  were  fired  by  the 
troops  into  the  street  we  left,  and  many 
people  were  killed.  We  had  to  run  twice 
into  houses  to  escape  a  charge  of  cavalry. 
Fusillades  were  going  on  everywhere,  and  the 
people  seemed  to  gather  fresh  determination 
and  energy  every  minute.  Everywhere  we 
heard  and  joined  in  the  deeply  exciting  cho 
ruses  of  "  La  Marseillaise  "  and  "  Girondins." 
Very  few  of  the  National  Guards  were  as  yet 
to  be  seen.  At  this  time  (noon),  people  were 
killed  in  different  parts  of  the  city  by  the 
Municipal  Guards,  who  were  always  very 
much  hated.  As  the  people  were  at  this  hour 
almost  literally  unarmed,  these  discharges 
were  nothing  more  nor  less  than  murder. 
Several  individuals  in  upper  stories  of  houses 
were  singled  out  and  shot  by  the  Municipaux. 


PARIS  IN   '48  187 

At  two  o'clock  the  Nat.  Guards  (who  are 
citizen  soldiers)  began  to  interfere  with  and 
prevent  this  unreasonable  slaughter,  and 
cried  with  the  people  A  bas  Guizot!  and  Vive 
la  reforme!  At  five  o'clock  some  police 
prisons  were  broken  open,  and  those  who 
had  been  arrested  for  "  rioting "  delivered. 
About  this  hour  I  witnessed,  with  Rosengar- 
ten,  the  fusillade  of  the  Rue  St.  Denis  by 
the  bridge.  At  this  instant  the  bridges  were 
closed,  and  I  supposed,  as  the  soldiers  told 
us,  that  it  would  not  be  possible  to  cross  the 
river.  We  went,  however,  to  the  Pont  Neuf. 
Already  we  had  heard  a  rumour  that  the  min 
istry  was  to  be  changed,  and,  on  entering  the 
Rue  de  la  Monnaye,  saw  an  officer  on  horse 
back  who  announced  to  the  very  great  joy  of 
the  people  that  Guizot  had  resigned.  The 
bridge  was  free  and  every  one  imagined  that 
order  would  be  restored  as  soon  as  the  retiral 
of  the  hated  minister  should  be  generally 
known.  Such  might  indeed  have  been  the 
case,  had  not  precisely  at  this  time  an  event 
taken  place  which,  trifling  as  it  seems,  was 
in  reality  the  turning  point  of  the  entire 
Revolution  and  the  French  government.  It 
was  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  while  the 


i88  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

streets  were  being  illuminated  in  honour  of 
the  change  in  the  cabinet,  at  an  instant  when 
all  Paris  was  becoming  joyful  and  happy,  that 
the  soldiers  stationed  to  guard  the  house  of 
M.  Guizot  fired  on  the  people  in  the  street 
and  killed  or  wounded  sixty  persons.  .  .  . 
From  one  end  of  the  city  to  the  other  the 
cry  of  Aux  armes  was  heard,  the  tocsin  was 
sounded  at  several  churches.  An  American, 
who  has  only  heard  bells  of  a  smaller  calibre, 
can  have  no  idea  of  the  awful  unearthly  effect 
which  the  sound  of  these  "  storm  bells,"  as 
the  Germans  call  them,  produces.  As  they 
are  only  sounded  for  fire  (which  is  of  very 
rare  occurrence  in  Paris)  and  insurrection, 
you  may  well  imagine  that  the  rarity  of  the 
alarm  roar  adds  greatly  to  its  effect.  Suppose 
it  mingled  with  discharges  of  musketry,  the 
galloping  of  cavalry,  the  shouts  of  the  infu 
riated  crowd  and  the  screams  of  the  wounded, 
and  you  can  form  some  idea  of  the  "  street 
music "  of  Paris  on  that  eventful  night. 
Every  one  slept  lightly  and  anxiously,  for 
the  King  had  100,000  troops  in  the  city,  and 
the  people  were  hardly  armed  at  all. 

Next  morning,  when  I  rose,  I  found  the  en 
tire  Quarter  in  an  uproar.    Bands  of  students 


PARIS   IN   '48  189 

and  labourers  hurried  from  house  to  house, 
fiercely  demanding  arms.  Everything  was 
converted  into  a  weapon,  —  knives  and  forks, 
crowbars,  bayonets  on  broom-handles ;  I  saw 
many  curious  and  beautiful  weapons  of  the 
Middle  Ages  which  had  been  snatched  from 
the  dust  of  garrets  or  museums  to  lend  aid,  in 
their  old  age,  to  a  modern  battle.  One  street 
loafer  in  rags  trundled  along  with  an  immense 
two-handed  rapier  of  the  i4th  century,  at  least 
six  feet  long,  hanging  at  his  back.  Another 
brandished  a  Morgenstern  or  Morningstar  — 
a  spiked  mace.  The  neighbourhood  of  the 
Museum  Cluny  explained  the  source  of  these 
curiosities.  As  fast  as  arms  were  obtained 
from  a  house,  they  wrote  on  the  door,  Armes 
donnees.  On  one  house  I  saw,  "  No  weapons 
left,  Caporal  has  gone  away  with  the  gun." 
As  for  myself,  I  breakfasted  in  a  hurry,  made 
a  detour,  for  the  side  street  was  being  filled 
with  broken  bottles  for  the  benefit  of  the  cav 
alry,  and,  hurrying  home,  loaded  my  "duel 
lers"  and,  equipped  with  dirk  and  pistol,  went 
forth  and  worked  with  a  hearty  good  will  at 
the  barricades.  My  English  friend,  Field, 
caught  the  excitement,  and  rushed  to  work 
without  stopping  even  to  change  his  white 


i9o  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

gloves.  I  remember  perfectly  well  once,  when 
a  boy  at  school  in  America,  wondering  how 
the  French  people  contrived  to  get  up  these 
mysterious  barricades.  As  L'artde  construire 
les  barricades  remains  as  yet  unwritten,  I  will 
go  a  little  into  detail.  Paris  is  paved  with 
large  square  stones,  varying  from  six  to  twelve 
inches  in  length.  One  man  roots  them  up 
with  a  crowbar,  and  six  or  eight  form  a  line 
and  pass  them  along.  I  started  one  barricade 
in  a  side  street  with  some  half  a  dozen  "  ac 
complices,"  and  I  verily  believe  that  in  six 
minutes  it  was  nearly  six  feet  high.  Never  did 
I  see  human  beings  work  with  such  desperate 
energy.  A  great  many  well-dressed  gentlemen 
were  mingled  with  the  others.  One  large  bar 
rier  on  the  other  side  was  constructed  almost 
exclusively  by  young  gentlemen.  On  the 
Boulevards  and  Quais,  trees  were  cut  down 
to  form  barricades.  Near  the  Bourse  they 
employed  its  spiked  railings  to  form  chevaux 
de  frise.  In  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine  I  saw 
barricades  constructed  exclusively  of  chairs, 
beds,  tables,  etc.  Generally  speaking,  a  cart, 
diligence,  omnibus,  or  fiacre  was  taken  to  form 
a  nucleus,  around  which  the  stones  were  piled. 
The  barricade  once  formed,  nothing  remained 


PARIS   IN   '48  191 

to  be  done  but  stand  by  and  guard  it,  for  no 
one  knew  in  what  quarter,  or  from  what  side, 
we  might  be  first  attacked.  Twice,  at  our  large 
barrier,  the  cry  of  Les  Municipaux  was  raised, 
and  while  the  women  rushed  into  the  houses 
(all  of  which  were  left  expressly  open  in  com 
pliance  with  a  placard  posted  on  all  the  walls), 
we  ran  with  our  arms  to  the  barricade.  Our 
quarter,  however,  remained  safe. 

While  I  was  at  our  barricades,  matters  were 
progressing  with  fearful  rapidity  in  other  parts 
of  the  city.  Early  in  the  morning,  another 
cabinet  had  been  formed.  .  .  .  The  hotel  of 
M.  Guizot  was  taken,  on  one  side  the  people 
immediately  wrote  Hotel  du  Peuple,  on  the 
other  Propriete  Nationale,  also  two  placards 
bearing  the  inscriptions  "  Shop  to  let,"  and 
"  A  large  apartment  to  let."  Immediately  after, 
the  prison  in  the  Rue  de  Clichy  was  broken 
open,  and  the  prisoners  (confined  for  debt) 
liberated.  At  the  same  time  (10  A.M.),  severe 
firing  took  place  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde, 
and  also  in  the  Rue  Anjou  St.  Honore,  where 
many  were  killed.  At  half  past  twelve  a  very 
brisk  engagement  took  place  between  the 
Nat.  Guards  and  citizens  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  troops  of  the  line  on  the  other,  in  the 


192  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Place  du  Palais  Royal.  As  a  curious  fact,  I 
would  mention  that  I  have  heard  it  stated  that 
a  son  of  Mehemet  Ali's,  now  being  educated 
here  in  Paris,  armed  with  a  musket,  fought  in 
this  place  with  great  bravery  on  the  side  of 
the  people.  ...  In  our  University  Quarter,  I 
remained  at  a  barricade  until  a  tremendous  up 
roar  heard  near  the  bridges,  shouting  mingled 
with  numerous  discharges  of  guns,  induced 
us  for  an  instant  to  believe  that  an  attack  was 
taking  place.  It  was,  however,  only  a  regi 
ment  of  the  line  come  to  render  up  their  arms 
to  the  people ;  in  token  of  amity  and  joy  they 
kept  continually  discharging  their  pieces  in 
the  air  and  exchanged  with  the  crowd,  who 
were  fairly  crazy  with  joy,  cordial  grasps  of 
the  hand,  embraces,  and  kind  salutations. 
The  uproar  was  deafening,  and  had  I  not  wit 
nessed,  immediately  after,  at  the  Tuileries,  a 
scene  which  infinitely  surpassed  it,  should  say 
that  the  excitement  was  as  intense  as  any  that 
I  had  ever  seen. 

From  this  scene,  I  hurried  to  the  Tuileries 
and  arrived  there  just  after  the  struggle  had 
ceased.  Our  first  intimation  of  the  event  was 
seeing  a  Royal  carriage  on  fire,  which  a  crowd 
of  delighted  gamins  were  rolling  along  the 


PARIS    IN   '48  193 

Quai.  As  we  entered  the  Place,  we  saw,  to 
the  left,  hundreds  busily  engaged  in  distrib 
uting  military  bread  to  the  hungry  people 
from  a  waggon.  Great  numbers  of  those  who 
were  engaged  in  the  taking  of  this  Place  were 
workmen  out  of  employment,  who,  ill-fed  at 
best,  had  been,  in  many  instances,  all  night 
building  barricades  and  had  eaten  nothing 
for  24  hours.  Great  quantities  of  bread,  infe 
rior  wine,  and  salted  meat  were  distributed. 
The  poor  devils  ate  like  hungry  wolves,  yet 
without  quarrelling  about  quantity  or  pos 
session,  and  partook  in  the  most  amicable 
manner  imaginable  of  the  remarkably  coarse 
brown  bread  (I  have  seen  horses  fed  with  as 
good).  The  surplus  bread  and  meat  they 
carried  away  on  the  points  of  their  swords, 
bayonets,  pikes,  etc.  But  the  maddening  ex 
citement  of  the  multitude  who  filled  the 
Place  des  Tuileries,  half-crazy  with  the  con 
sciousness  of  complete  victory,  was  literally 
indescribable.  Shouting,  hurrahing,  and 
screaming  with  delight,  firing  their  guns  and 
pistols  in  the  air,  some  of  them  caracolling 
about  on  splendid  horses  from  the  royal  sta 
bles,  and  displaying  their  newly  acquired 
arms  with  all  the  pride  of  a  gentleman  cava- 


194  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Her  who  has  "  steed  to  ride  and  weapon  to 
wear,"  they  formed  a  spectacle  which  no  city 
save  Paris  could  present.  On  entering  the 
Tuileries  I  was  even  more  struck.  A  great 
deal  of  small  pilfering  of  course  at  once  took 
place,  but  it  struck  me,  even  at  the  time,  that 
it  was  rather  for  the  sake  of  retaining  some 
small  souvenir  of  their  visit  than  to  actually 
benefit  themselves.  Jewelry,  to  the  amount 
of  3,000,000  fr.,  was  spared,  and  all  the  works 
of  art,  with  the  exception  of  the  King's  por 
trait  (which  was  torn  in  pieces)  and  his  bust 
(which  was  hung  up  by  the  neck),  left  un 
touched.  Placards  were  at  once  placed  on 
every  valuable  object  declaring  it  to  be  "  Na 
tional  property/'  and  others,  proclaiming 
"  Death  to  thieves  "  and  friendship  to  Poland 
and  Italy,  were  placed  here  and  there.  The 
extraordinary  assertions  of  the  French  papers 
with  regard  to  the  extreme  moderation  and 
honesty  of  the  captors  are  to  be  taken  with 
a  certain  degree  of  allowance,  yet  I  am  still 
quite  inclined  to  believe  it  to  be  almost  un 
precedented.  With  the  taking  of  the  Tuileries 
the  Revolution  was  accomplished.  .  .  . 

Very  little  of  the  slang  and  machinery  of 
the  old  French  Revolution  has  been  brought 


PARIS   IN  '48  195 

into  play.  To  be  sure,  we  all  call  one  another 
citoyen  and  citoyenne,  but,  as  has  been  justly 
remarked,  it  is  more  in  joke  than  other 
wise.  The  red  flag  and  cockade  has  given 
place  to  the  less  Jacobinical  tri-color,  and  the 
old  cry  of  "  Vive  les  sans-culottes,"  which  a 
few  voices  raised  on  the  Boulevards,  has  been 
universally  reechoed  by  the  more  respect 
able  and  popular  shout  of  "No  more  sans* 
culottes?  In  short,  this  revolution  is  doing 
its  best  to  be  honest  and  decent. 

One  effect  which  it  had  in  a  small  way  was 
to  make  all  Paris  acquainted,  intimate  even, 
and  ten  times  as  lively  and  affable  as  ever. 
Introductions  were  voted  bores,  and  the  gamin 
in  the  street  walked  along  with  the  well- 
dressed  gentleman,  exchanging  with  him 
information  and  theory  with  regard  to  the 
Republique.  The  streets  have  been  very  hand 
somely  illuminated  for  several  nights.  .  .  . 
It  is  really  delightful  to  be  an  American  here 
in  Paris  at  present ;  they  consider  us  as,  in 
fact,  doubly  distilled  Republicans.  Eh  bien, 
I  must  close.  I  have  left  hundreds  of  things 
untold,  which  you  must  get  at  either  in  the 
papers  or  from  my  future  letters.  ... 


196  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

It  is  amusing  to  insert,  after  this  letter  to 
his  father,  a  little  printed  circular,  yellow  and 
stained,  addressed  to  "  Monsieur  C.  G.  Le- 
land,  62  Rue  de  la  Harpe,"  which,  without 
exaggeration,  may  be  described  as  an  historical 
document :  — 

SIR,  —  A  meeting  of  citizens  of  the  United 
States  of  America  will  take  place  at  No.  9 
Rue  Richer  to-morrow,  March  2d,  at  12 
o'clock,  to  make  arrangements  for  a  proper 
expression  of  feeling  to  the  Provisional  Gov 
ernment  of  France  in  respect  of  the  recent 
revolution. 

You  are  respectfully  invited  to  attend,  and 
particularly  requested  to  notify  your  Ameri 
can  friends  of  said  meeting. 
PARIS,  ist  March,  1848. 


CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO    HENRY   PERRY   LELAND 

PARIS,  March  20,  1848. 

CARO  ENRICO,  —  Punch's  account  of  M. 
Alex.  Dumas'  two  letters  from  Spain  shall 
apply  to  mine  from  Paris.  The  first  was  all 
roses  and  gas  light,  champagne  foam  and 
hurrahs,  but  the  second,  which  went,  not  to 


PARIS   IN    '48  197 

a  journal  but  to  a  friend,  was  all  curses  and 
vin  ordinary  and  bad  roads.  The  hangman 
carry  this  spring  weather  for  me !  Au  reste, 
times  are  dull,  the  masqued  balls  over,  money 
scarce,  the  lorettes  frightened  to  death,  and 
all  the  canaille  busy  in  discussing  rorgani- 
zation  du  Travail.  .  .  . 

You  want  a  description  of  one  of  my  days 
in  Paris.  Eh  bien  !  I  wake  at  8  or  9,  and 
read  perhaps  half  an  hour.  Then  I  get  up. 
Then  a  little  girl  comes  and  brings  milk  and 
eggs.  Then  the  concierge  comes  and  rakes 
out  some  hot  coals,  and  with  the  gridiron 
cooks  a  beefsteak  or  cotelettes.  Then  Field 
comes.  Then  the  table  is  spread,  Field  hav 
ing  a  re-inforcement  of  sardines.  Then  all  is 
over.  The  dishes  are  washed.  Pipes  or  ciga 
rettes  are  lighted.  The  eau-de-vie  is  pro 
duced,  and  I  get  hold  of  a  book.  Since  the 
Revolution  our  lectures  have  gone  to  the 
Devil,  so  I  read  and  write  or  loaf  until  6 
o'clock.  Then  the  great  question:  where 
shall  we  dine?  And  we  dine  at  Janodet's 
very  well  indeed  from  two  to  three  francs,  or 
in  the  Palais  Royal  nearly  as  well  from  one 
and  a  half  to  two,  or  at  John  Bull's  for  the 
same,  or  at  Viot's  once  a  fortnight  for  one. 


198   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

After  dinner,  cafe,  billiards  (not  very  often), 
or  loaf,  or  a  visit,  or  a  spectacle,  or  home  to 
read  and  write  and  smoke,  or  anything  you 
please.  That  is  my  present  life,  and  it  is,  at 
all  events,  agreeable.  The  mail !  Oh  donner- 
wetter  kreutz-million  /  I  'm  afraid  that  this  is 
too  late. 

Thy  true  friend  and  ever  dear  brother, 

CARL. 

P.  S.  —  Don't  know  Grammont.  Did  you 
ever  hear  of  Abraham  a  Santa  Clara  —  see  if 
his  works  are  in  Philadelphia.  I  want  them 
awfully.  Is  Wincklemann,  or  Winkelmann, 
in  the  Bibliotheca?  Stick  it  into  the  library 
box  to  subscribe  to  "  Le  Moyen  Age  et  la 
Renaissance." 


CHARLES   GODFREY    LELAND   TO   FRANK   FISHER 

PARIS,  April  28,  1848. 

DEAR  FRANK, — Accuse  me  of  negligence 
in  writing,  if  you  will,  but  of  all  negligence 
with  regard  to  attending  to  your  affairs  I  am 
innocent.  Oui,  tres  cher  amy  et  cousin.  Ev 
erything  in  Paris  has  gone  a  tort  et  a  travers 
from  the  affairs  of  Louis  Filente  or  Louis 
Filon  and  the  Government  Provisoire  down 


PARIS   IN   '48  199 

to  mine  and  thine.  The  fall  of  the  oak  kills 
the  squirrels,  and  the  Revolution  of  1848  has 
played  " enfer"  with  our  personal  arrange 
ments.  I  have  already  written  a  longish  letter 
to  you  —  it  "  went  lost,"  and  now  I  hit  him 
again.  I  Ve  been  in  all  sorts  of  adventures, 
and  all  sorts  of  luck  since  I  saw  you.  I  turned 
out  in  the  Grande  Revolution,  armed  like  a 
smuggler  with  dirk  and  pistols,  saw  some  fu 
sillades,  helped  build  several  barricades,  —  was 
capitaine  at  one  nice  little  one  in  our  Quar- 
tier,  and  distributed  percussion  caps  and  con 
solation  to  the  heroic  canaille,  not  to  mention 
being  at  the  plunder  of  the  Tuileries  —  not 
that  I  plundered  anything.  It  was  great  fun 
while  it  lasted  —  was  that  said  same  Revolu 
tion.  Whack,  hurrah,  guns  and  drums,  fusil 
lades  and  barricades !  We  dined  under  a  Mon 
archy,  supped  under  a  Regency,  went  to  sleep 
under  a  Provisional  Government,  and  woke 
under  a  Republic — not  to  mention  about  two 
hours  when  we  had  just  no  Government  at  all. 
Well,  ami  cousin,  I  'm  coming  home  soon. 
The  Boulevards  look  forlorn  without  trees  — 
Dejazet  is  playing  in  "  Mile,  de  Choisy  "  at  the 
Varietes  —  a  very  pretty  little  comedy.  We 
had  a  Review  with  nearly  350,000  soldiers  the 


200  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

other  day,  and  all  Paris  is  overrun  with  penny 
papers,  newsboys,  and  newswomen,  who  make 
such  a  row  night  and  day  that  the  city  has 
become  insufferable.  Field  is  in  England.  As 
for  me,  I  made  a  speech  in  German  the  other 
night  to  the  audience  at  Bobino's  little  The 
atre,  at  the  top  of  my  voice.  It  went  down 
like  Greek  at  Tammany  Hall — nobody  under 
stood  a  word,  the  audience  were  completely 
mystified,  but  still  very  much  delighted. 
Whenever  a  man  who  looks  a  little  more  re 
spectable  than  common  goes  to  Bobino's,  he 
is  sure  to  be  called  out  to  by  some  student,  — 
more  oratorical  than  the  rest,  —  and  must 
either  display  his  talent  at  repartee  and  slang 
ing,  or  else  sit  still  and  be  slanged.  Well  — 
/  was  the  selected  one  the  other  night,  and 
as  I  did  not  understand  half  their  argot — 
though  by  this  time  I  speak  French  decently 
enough  —  I  gave  it  back  to  them  in  a  regu 
lar  stump  speech  in  German  —  not  caring  to 
speak  English  and  be  called  a'"  Goddem  "  and 
a  "  biftek."  All  of  these  things  have  come 
on  since  the  Revolution  —  now  the  entire 
populace  has  become  acquainted,  nobody  is 
gene:  every  night  at  all  the  theatres  the  en 
tire  audience  sing  the  songs  of  the  revolu- 


FROM  CHARLES  G.  LELAND 


PARIS   IN   '48  201 

tion  and  amuse  themselves  in  a  free  and  easy 
way  which  would  do  honour  to  the  Bowery  — 
so  that  even  I  —  quiet  and  sober  citizen  — 
have  been  inspired  with  their  enthusiasm.  I 
really  begin  to  think  of  addressing  the  opera 
audience  on  the  American  Constitution  — 
the  price  of  provisions  —  electromagnetism 

—  and  matters  and  things  in  general.   You 
will  find  the  report  of  the  speech  the  next  day 
after  never  in  the  columns  of  the  "  Constitu- 
tionnel  "  —  Vive  la  bagatelle  —  don't  shew  this 
epistle  to  anybody  and  believe  me  to  be, 

Yours  truly,  .  .  . 

I  meant  to  have  given  you  another  treat. 
Remember  me  particularly  to  Mary  Lizzie, — 
I  owe  her  a  letter,  —  and  very  kindly  to  your 
Father  and  Mother  and  all.  You  will  prob 
ably  see  me  this  summer.  H'elas!  les  beaux 
jours  de  la  vie!  I  have  eaten  at  Janodet's 
ever  since  you  left — do  you  know  the  place? 

—  White's  compliments  to  you,  etc.,  and  so 
on. 

The  result  of  the  Revolution  —  King  Stork 
coming  to  replace  King  Log,  as  he  described 
it — the  Rye  did  not  wait  to  see.  His  time 
abroad  was  almost  up,  and  he  set  out  on  the 


202  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

journey  homeward  almost  immediately.  But 
his  pulse  always  beat  faster  at  the  thought  of 
those  momentous  days.  In  the  "  Memoranda," 
under  the  date  24th  of  February,  1890, 1  find 
a  reference  to  them,  sad  enough  in  the  con 
trast  suggested :  — 

"  On  Feb.  24th,  1848,  42  years  ago,  at  this 
hour,  I  was  in  the  thick  of  the  French  Rev 
olution  —  at  the  Tuileries.  Even  now  the 
memory  inspires  me.  What  a  day  it  was  for 
me !  I  felt  and  knew  its  greatness  at  the  time. 
I  felt  that  everything  in  which  I  took  part 
was  history.  'Shot  and  smoke  and  sabre 
stroke  and  death  shots  followed  fast/  .  .  . 
Now  I  am  high  and  dry  on  the  beach.  But  I 
remember  when  I  rolled  in  the  wave." 

There  is  an  old,  battered,  little  Journal  be 
longing  to  1848,  where,  from  blurred,  rubbed, 
and  faded  pages  of  impressions  in  picture 
galleries,  extracts  copied  from  books,  odds  and 
ends  of  rhyme,  all  written  in  pencil,  a  few 
entries  stand  out  in  the  legibility  of  pen-and- 
ink;  these  cover  the  journey  from  Paris  and 
the  arrival  in  London.  Were  they  of  to-day, 
or  even  yesterday,  no  one  would  think  of 
quoting  them.  But  the  date  —  1848  —  what 
a  difference ! 


PARIS   IN   '48  203 

June  1 6th.  Left  Paris  at  7  P.  M.  4  young 
Frenchmen  in  the  car.  Arrived  at  Rouen, 
ii  p.  M.  Hotel  du  Midi. 

June  1 7th.  Saw  churches,  Johanna  of  the 
fountain.  Left,  evening,  at  7.28  p.  M.  Arrived 
at  Havre  n.  Hotel  de  Normandie. 

June  1 8th.  Got  on  board  boat.  203.  Ger 
man-Swiss  Captain — pilot  —  etc. — very  plea 
sant  passage. 

June  i  Qth.  Arrived  at  St.  Katherine  Docks. 
Very  severe  search.  Got  cab  and  went  to 
German  Hotel,  Leicester  St.,  Leicester  Square. 
Colquhoun  called  on  me.  Field.  Went  to 
Cremorne  Gardens  and  Evans  Cellar. 

June  2Oth.  Went  to  Westminster  School 
and  Abbey  with  Colquhoun. 

Then,  in  pencil,  isolated,  dozens  of  pages 
left  blank  on  either  side  for  the  inspiration 
that  failed :  "  Reflections  written  in  the  Ball 
of  St.  Paul's  — July  2nd,  1848." 

I  gather  from  the  "  Memoirs  "  how  little 
time  there  was  for  reflection :  so  much  was 
to  be  done.  He  went  to  the  opera  to  hear 
Grisi  and  Lablache  sing  together,  as  they 
sang  so  sweetly  in  the  tales  of  Willis  and 
other  fashionable  authors  of  the  day.  He  went 


204  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

to  see  Taglioni  dance,  as  he  had  already  in 
Munich.  He  was  carried  off  to  Thames  re 
gattas,  he  was  asked  to  eat  Soyer's  dinners  at 
the  Reform  Club.  He  had  ceased  to  be  the 
student,  —  he  was  the  young  man  about  town. 
At  the  end  of  the  summer,  he  sailed  from 
Portsmouth  for  New  York,  on  the  ship  Medi 
ator  as  I  make  out  from  the  same  little  note 
book.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Gilbert  were  fellow 
passengers,  and  they  were  not,  like  Fanny 
Kemble,  too  great  to  be  friendly.  The  famous 
Ravel  family  were  rescued  in  mid-ocean  from 
a  famine  of  fuel  on  a  ship  of  their  own  char 
tering  ;  whales  and  water-spouts  and  icebergs 
were  encountered  by  the  way  ;  and  not  one  of 
the  thirty-five  days  of  a  crossing  we  think  un 
endurable  if  prolonged  beyond  six,  was  for  him 
troubled  by  a  more  depressing  consideration 
than  that,  whatever  problems  the  immediate 
future  was  to  torment  him  with,  youth  at  the 
passing  moment  was  not  without  amusement. 
From  the  time  of  his  leaving  New  York,  three 
years  before,  until  his  landing  there  one  au 
tumn  day  in  1848,  his  lines  had  been  cast  in 
pleasant  places  —  pleasant  because  of  his  own 
choosing. 


CHAPTER  VI 

YEARS  OF  STORM  AND  STRESS 

THE  young  traveller  coming  home  found 
Philadelphia  unchanged.  If  he  no  longer  felt 
its  charm  in  the  old  fashion,  the  difference 
was  in  him.  The  spirit  of  the  place,  ever 
in  memory  so  "  strangely  quiet,  sunny,  and 
quaint,"  had  helped  him  to  lose  in  dreams  the 
unpleasant  reality  of  school  and  college.  But 
it  was  now  a  time  for  action,  and  in  this  "  pro 
vincial  valley  of  self-sufficientness  and  con 
tentment,"  to  borrow  Lowell's  description  of 
Philadelphia  in  the  Forties,  he  missed  the 
brisker,  more  liberal  atmosphere  of  Heidel 
berg  and  Munich  and  Paris.  When,  in  the 
"  Memoirs,"  he  wrote  of  the  years  following 
his  return,  his  native  town  lay  under  the 
shadow  of  his  disappointment.  It  seemed  as 
if  there  could  not  then  have  been  another 
city  "of  which  so  little  evil  was  to  be  said,  or 
so  much  good,  yet  of  which  so  few  ever  spoke 
with  enthusiasm,"  —  though  he  managed 
eventually  to  speak  of  it  with  enthusiasm  him- 


206  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

self,  as,  for  that  matter,  most  Philadelphians  do, 
Philadelphia  somehow  inspiring  the  loyalty  it 
is  seldom  at  pains  to  return.  Its  people,  "  all 
well  bathed,  well  clad,  well  behaved,"  appeared, 
in  his  scornful  young  eyes,  to  have  all  "  exactly 
the  same  ideas  and  the  same  ideals,"  —  peo 
ple  who  loved  flowers  more  than  books,  who, 
when  they  gave  their  always  excellent  dinners, 
prized  what  was  on  the  table  above  what 
was  around  it;  people,  in  fact,  not  likely  to 
interest  a  young  man  with  a  fancy  for  the  so 
ciety  of  smugglers  and  slavers,  with  standards 
borrowed  from  German  student-life,  and  with 
the  music  of  the  Marseillaise  still  tingling  in 
his  veins. 

I  am  afraid  the  Rye  must  often  have  said 
what  he  thought  of  Philadelphia  in  those 
days,  —  to  say  what  he  thought,  and  to  say  it 
emphatically  and  picturesquely,  was  a  way 
he  had;  I  know  Philadelphia  never  alto 
gether  forgave  him  for  it.  But  his  impatience 
was  due  to  nothing  more  serious  than  the 
intolerance  of  youth.  In  Boston,  even  in  New 
York,  he  might  have  fallen  straight  into  more 
congenial  surroundings  and  so  have  lost  what 
ever  was  most  original  in  him.  Indeed,  any 
where  save  in  Philadelphia,  he  might,  like 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    207 

Gautier  in  Paris,  have  gathered  a  group  of 
other  impatient  young  souls  about  him.  In 
Philadelphia,  he  was  practically  alone,  so  that 
his  contempt  was  not  tempered  by  the  humour 
of  companionship.  George  Boker  was  there 
—  a  man  he  loved.  But  George  Boker,  he 
says,  in  writing  of  this  period,  had  trained  him 
self  from  boyhood  to  self-restraint  and  calm 
ness.  In  this  respect,  at  least,  they  had  little 
in  common.  To  be  in  revolt  all  by  one's  self 
was  to  have  none  of  the  fun  of  defiance. 

The  contrast  between  Philadelphia  and 
Munich,  or  Heidelberg,  or  Paris,  might  have 
been  endured  by  the  Rye,  but  for  the  more 
appalling  contrast  between  the  profession 
now  chosen  for  him  and  the  pursuits  he  had 
chosen  for  himself  in  France  and  Germany. 
For  the  law  was  decided  upon,  and  he  was 
hardly  home  again  before  he  was  entered  as 
a  student  in  the  office  of  John  Cadwalader  in 
Fourth  Street.  To  be  exact,  October  25,1 848, 
was  the  date  of  his  registration,  as  I  learn  from 
an  account  of  "John  Cadwalader's  Office" 
written  for  the  "  Law  Association  "  of  Phila 
delphia  by  Mr.  John  Samuel,  a  fellow  student. 
"  Afterwards,"  Mr.  Samuel  says,  in  giving  a 
list  of  the  men  who  studied  with  him,  "came 


208  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Charles  G.  Leland,  just  back  from  Germany, 
full  of  German  life,  and  German  mysticism, 
and  European  ideas  of  life.  He  was  not  cut 
out  for  a  lawyer."  And  Mr.  Samuel  adds,  as 
if  to  praise  the  strength  of  this  German  in 
fluence,  "  It  was  Mr.  Leland  who  first  intro 
duced  to  his  fellow  students,  and  I  think  I 
may  say  to  the  Philadelphia  public,  the  use 
of  lager  beer  in  place  of  the  strong  malt  po 
tations  to  which  we  had  been  accustomed." 
The  decorations  of  the  office  Mr.  Samuel  re 
calls  :  with  its  anthracite  stove,  one  long  table, 
and  hard  wooden  or  straw-seated  chairs  for 
furniture,  and  for  company,  its  group  of  young 
men  struggling  with  Blackstone,  copying 
deeds  and  leases,  it  must  have  been  a  trifle  de 
pressing  after  the  lecture  halls  and  bierkellars 
of  Munich  and  Heidelberg.  And  it  may  be 
that  the  German  mysticism  and  German  ways 
were  not  precisely  calculated  to  make  the 
new  student  popular  in  the  office.  For  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  prejudice  in  those  days 
against  the  American  who  showed  signs  of 
being  "  Germanized."  It  was  one  of  Poe's 
grievances  that  a  charge  of  "  Germanism  " 
had  been  brought  against  him  by  his  critics, 
—  a  charge  which  he  protested  was  in  "  bad 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    209 

taste," — and  the  Rye  often  declared  to  me 
that  his  knowledge  of  German  in  his  youth 
had  been  treated  as  if  it  were  a  weakness  in 
him,  or  a  vice. 

Business  could  have  been  scarcely  less  to 
his  liking  than  the  law.  But  he  made  the 
best  of  things  for  his  father's  sake.  He  worked 
hard ;  though  the  harder  he  worked  the  fur 
ther  he  was  driven  for  his  real  life  into  his 
own  dreams  and  the  romance  of  art  and 
philosophy.  I  cannot  think  of  him  at  Mr. 
Cadwalader's,  poring  over  musty  law  books, 
lost  in  legal  fogs,  without  seeing  as  a  com 
panion  figure  in  misery  the  young  Borrow 
shut  up  in  the  Norwich  office,  while  outside 
the  road  was  calling.  However,  the  Romany 
Rye  in  Philadelphia  persevered  so  well  that, 
at  the  end  of  three  years  (1851),  he  passed  his 
examination,  took  an  office  in  Third  Street, 
and  hung  up  his  sign  as  Attorney-at-Law. 
He  had  done  all  in  his  power  to  satisfy  his 
father ;  the  rest  lay  with  the  people  of  Phila 
delphia. 

In  the  meanwhile,  for  his  own  amusement, 
he  had  been  writing.  He  had  long  had  the 
habit.  At  Princeton,  he  had  contributed  to 
the  college  magazine ;  from  abroad,  he  had 


210  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

sent  occasional  letters  to  the  newspapers 
at  home.  And  now,  by  a  piece  of  luck,  he 
fell  in  with  Richard  B.  Kimball,  a  New  York 
lawyer,  who,  as  the  author  of  several  forgotten 
novels,  probably  understood  how  irritating  it 
was  to  want  to  give  the  world  literature,  and 
to  be  asked  instead  for  law.  And  Kimball — 
who  "  in  1849  bade  me,  in  a  letter,  to  go  down 
on  rny  knees  and  thank  Rabelais  for  having 
preserved  me  from  Longfellow"  —  "opened 
the  door  "  of  the  "  Knickerbocker  Magazine," 
and  of  happiness,  to  the  young  Philadelphian 
oppressed  with  the  emptiness  of  a  legal  life 
without  clients ;  only  two,  at  a  profit  of  fifteen 
dollars,  had  Philadelphia  found  for  him  in  the 
first  six  months.  The  "  Knickerbocker,"  to 
the  youth  with  literary  aspirations,  as  to  the 
literary  man  who  had  arrived,  was  what  the 
"  Atlantic  "  became  in  later  years.  "  By  all 
means,  cultivate  the  '  Knickerbocker,' "  Haw 
thorne's  friend,  Horace  Bridge,  wrote  to  him 
when  Hawthorne  was  first  trying  to  make  a 
position  in  print,  and  he  and  Longfellow  and 
Lowell  and  all  distinguished  and  popular 
American  authors,  as  well  as  many  English, 
were  among  its  contributors.  For  one's  name 
to  appear  in  its  table  of  contents  was  an  in- 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    211 

troduction.  Before  long,  the  Rye's  work  was 
accepted  also  for  John  Sartain's  art  maga 
zine,  published  in  Philadelphia.  I  doubt  if 
many  Philadelphians  realize  the  number  of 
experiments  in  periodical  literature  that  have 
seen  the  light  in  Philadelphia.  Longfellow, 
in  his  "Journal,"  refers  to  one  that  was  to 
build  up  "  a  national  literature  worthy  of  the 
country  of  Niagara ! "  Hardly  as  much  could  be 
said  of  the  pretensions  of  the  "  Drawing-Room 
Journal,"  another  Philadelphia  publication 
for  which  the  Rye  was  allowed,  as  a  favour, 
to  write  the  musical  and  dramatic  criticism, 
Manuel  Cooke,  its  proprietor,  seeing  in  the 
atre  and  opera  tickets  the  munificent  pay 
ment  which  the  advertisement  of  having 
one's  work  printed  at  all  seems  to  some  eco 
nomical  editors  of  to-day ;  but  to  the  appren 
tice  in  journalism,  it  was  all  so  much  grist  to 
his  mill  in  the  way  of  practice  and  experience. 
Besides,  some  proprietors  and  editors  did  pay 
him  in  more  substantial  coin,  and  when  at 
the  end  of  those  legally  profitless  six  months, 
he  had  to  move  out  of  his  Third  Street  office, 
instead  of  taking  another,  he  washed  his 
hands  of  the  law  and  made  journalism  his 
profession.  And  so  Philadelphia  lost  a  poor 


212  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

lawyer  and  the  world  gained  Hans  Breit- 
mann. 

I  do  not  want  to  give  the  impression  that 
the  Rye,  all  this  time,  was  steeping  himself  in 
sorrow  like  a  melodramatic  young  Werther, 
or  shocking  the  Philistine  like  a  self-conscious 
young  Romanticist.  If  there  was  no  chance  to 
build  barricades  or  to  fall  in  with  smugglers, 
he  got  what  pleasure  he  could  out  of  the 
social  life  of  Philadelphia.  He  was  young, 
he  was  handsome,  —  a  trifle  over  six  feet  two, 
straight,  with  a  complexion  so  pink  and  white 
that  the  Philadelphia  girls  whispered  of  rouge 
and  powder,  is  his  own  description  a  few  years 
earlier,  —  and  to  be  young  and  handsome  is  a 
pleasure  in  itself.  He  was  clever  too,  and  clever 
young  men  were  then,  as  always,  socially  in 
demand. 

It  was  the  period  when  Mrs.  James  Rush 
was  holding  the  weekly  receptions  to  which 
everybody  flocked ;  not  only  everybody  who 
was  anybody  in  Philadelphia,  but  every  dis 
tinguished  stranger  who  visited  or  passed 
through  the  town,  and  a  varied  assortment 
of  celebrities  was  the  result;  for  instance, 
Sontag  and  Prince  Jerome  Buonaparte  were 
two  lions  the  Rye  remembered  having  met 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    213 

there  on  the  same  evening.  Her  invitations 
—  on  horrible  shiny  cards  to  balls  and  on 
legal-like  paper  to  concerts  —  are  preserved 
in  the  Rye's  archives.  I  cannot  resist  point 
ing  out,  though  Mrs.  Rush  is  a  celebrity 
probably  only  in  Philadelphia,  that  she  had 
risen  above  the  Philadelphia  social  standard 
and  interested  herself  in  interesting  peo 
ple  even  when  they  could  give  no  satis 
factory  answer  to  the  Philadelphia  question : 
"  Who  was  your  grandfather  ?  "  The  Rye's 
mother  wrote  to  him,  while  he  was  still 
in  Paris,  "  Mrs.  Rush  has  returned  from 
Europe  with  quite  democratic  feelings  — 
invites  all  who  are  genteel  and  respectable 
to  her  evening  parties,  says  she  wishes  to  do 
away  with  the  foolish  exclusiveness  of  Phila- 
delphians ; "  a  wish  that  to  me  seems  more 
revolutionary  than  the  Declaration  of  1776. 
Not  merely  Mrs.  Rush,  but  all  Philadelphia 
could  wake  up  to  its  social  responsibilities 
when  the  moment  required  it.  The  Rye  also 
remembered  having  seen  Kossuth  at  a  pub 
lic  reception,  Kossuth  being  then  on  the  tri 
umphal  journey  through  the  country  that 
other  good  Americans  were  to  remember  no 
less  vividly:  among  them  Longfellow,  who, 


214   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

from  a  balcony  in  Beacon  Street,  saw  the 
"great  Magyar,"  a  "  handsome  bearded  Hun, 
with  a  black  plume  in  his  hat,  and  clad  in 
black  velvet,"  and  also  Hawthorne,  to  whom 
and  his  family  the  glimpse  of  the  train,  with 
gaily  decorated  locomotive  carrying  the  pa 
triot  to  Boston,  was  the  great  event  of  their 
life  at  West  Newton.  At  John  Sartain's 
house,  the  pupil  of  Thiersch  could  count 
upon  a  talk  with  the  rare  artist  who  came  or 
belonged  to  Philadelphia.  At  the  Unitarian 
church,  the  student  of  Beckers  could  be  sure, 
as  of  old,  of  a  sermon  from  Dr.  Furness  that 
was  a  challenge  to  thought.  And  it  was 
during  the  fifties,  I  believe,  that  Mr.  Carey, 
who  was  always  glad  to  welcome  the  Rye, 
started  the  Sunday  afternoons,  long  famous  in 
Philadelphia  as  the  "  Carey  Vespers,"  "  where 
everything  was  discussed  and  nothing  de 
cided."  Then  there  were  the  few  closer  friends 
— his  brother  Henry,  George  Boker,  Joseph 
Paxton;  there  were  the  few  houses  with  a 
more  intimate  charm.  To  one  above  all,  Rod 
ney  Fisher's,  he  was  to  look  back  with  special 
tenderness. 

Rodney  Fisher  was  the  grand-nephew  of 
Caesar  Rodney,  who  signed  the  Declaration 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    215 

of  Independence,  and  the  son  of  Judge  Fisher 
of  Delaware.  He  had  come  to  live  in  Phila 
delphia  ;  he  was  a  prosperous  merchant,  for 
long  partner  in  an  English  firm  at  Canton. 
Small  child  as  I  was  when  he  died,  many 
years  later  on,  I  have  never  forgotten  his 
house  and  the  awe  with  which  it  filled  me. 
I  think  I  could  only  have  gone  there  in  the 
summer  time,  when  the  shutters,  in  Philadel 
phia  fashion,  were  bowed,  for  it  has  remained 
in  my  memory  a  place  of  darkness,  with  huge 
Oriental  jars  gleaming  from  shadowy  corners^ 
strange  gods  and  beasts  frowning  and  grin 
ning  down  upon  me  from  dim  walls,  and  a 
sudden  glow  of  colour  coming  from  mantels 
covered  with  rare  porcelain.  Probably  already 
in  the  fifties,  Rodney  Fisher  had  begun  to 
collect  these  things,  and  they  first  drew  the 
Rye  to  the  house.  But  there  were  greater 
attractions.  Mrs.  Rodney  Fisher  had  been 
a  Miss  Callender,  and  the  reputation  of  the 
Callenders  for  beauty  was  national,  had  even 
crossed  the  Atlantic.  She  herself  kept  up  the 
family  tradition,  and  had  passed  it  on,  as  an 
inheritance,  to  the  eldest  of  her  three  daugh 
ters  ;  the  most  beautiful  woman  he  had  seen 
in  America,  Thackeray  said  when  he  was 


216  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

there  in  the  sixties,  and  the  Rye  never  lost 
his  pleasure  in  the  compliment.  For,  to  quote 
his  own  -simply  told  story  of  these  visits  to 
Rodney  Fisher's  house :  "  I  fell  in  love  with 
his  daughter  Belle,  to  whom  I  became,  after 
about  a  year,  engaged." 

Journalism,  paid  for  largely  in  theatre 
tickets,  did  not  mean  as  much  as  the  mod 
est  competency  upon  which  young  Philadel- 
phians  were  then  not  afraid  to  marry.  An 
engagement  was  one  thing,  marriage  quite 
another,  and,  as  it  turned  out,  marriage  in 
his  case  was  to  be  postponed  for  five  years. 
In  waiting,  work,  profitable  work,  was  more 
eagerly  sought  than  ever.  It  is  in  keeping 
with  Philadelphia's  policy  that,  while  only 
shortly  before  it  had  provided  the  literary 
inducement  to  bring  Lowell  from  Boston  and 
Poe  from  New  York,  both  of  whom  were 
writing  for  a  living,  it  left  its  own  clever 
young  citizen  to  go  and  seek  a  profitable 
post  elsewhere.  No  Philadelphian  ever  yet 
was  a  genius  in  Philadelphia.  The  first  pro 
mising  offer  came  from  New  York,  and  from 
the  most  unexpected  quarter.  For  it  was 
Barnum  who  made  it,  as  it  always  pleased 
the  Rye,  with  his  love  of  the  "  queer,"  to  re- 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    217 

member.  Of  Barnum's  extraordinary  per 
formances,  surely  the  most  extraordinary  was 
the  launching  of  Hans  Breitmann  as  an  inde 
pendent  journalist. 

There  are  odds  and  ends  of  the  Rye's  cor 
respondence,  during  the  four  years  between 
his  return  from  Europe  and  his  departure  for 
New  York,  to  supplement  the  account  of  this 
period  in  the  "  Memoirs."  They  consist,  with 
one  exception,  of  letters  to  him,  and  they  are 
the  best  possible  evidence  of  the  astonishing 
rapidity  with  which  he  gained  his  reputation 
as  a  writer.  I  gather  from  them  that,  before 
the  first  year  (1849)  was  at  an  end,  he  was 
contributing  to  every  leading  magazine  in 
New  York  and  Philadelphia ;  that  as  promi 
nent  a  man  as  Charles  A.  Dana  of  the  "  Tri 
bune  "  was  writing  to  him  for  work  from  New 
York,  and  his  services  were  being  begged  for 
by  the  forgotten  editors  of  forgotten  papers 
all  over  the  country;  that  he  was  made  a 
member  of  the  Art  Union  in  Philadelphia 
and  was  being  complimented,  right  and  left, 
for  his  articles  on  art.  "  If  you  should  really 
succeed  in  domesticating  art  in  America,"  his 
Heidelberg  friend,  George  Ward,  wrote  from 
Boston  (January,  1849),  "you  would  do  what 


2i8  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

thousands  are  at  this  moment  striving  after, 
and  it  is  a  career  which,  honestly  pursued, 
opens  the  road  to  the  highest  fame  :  I  think, 
after  a  long  European  experience,  one  gets  a 
position  and  consideration  at  home  superior 
to  that  which  home-bred  merit  can  aspire 
to."  I  gather,  with  equal  certainty,  that  he 
was  in  active  correspondence  with  literary 
men  then  as  influential  as  Kimball,  Gaylord 
Clark,  R.  H.  Stoddard,  Dr.  Griswold.  "  Come 
to  New  York,"  Kimball  kept  urging ;  "  sev 
eral  amateurs,  dilettanti,  etc.  etc.,  are  ready 
to  show  you  the  *  elephants,'  the  things  which 
you  Germanized  fellows  ought  to  know." 
An  "  elephant "  of  which  Kimball  himself  was 
prepared  to  do  the  honours  was  the  Century 
Club.  It  is  amusing  to  read  his  description 
of  that  now  very  successful  institution  when 
it  was  in  its  early  infancy :  "  We  have  a  Club 
here  not  quite  two  years  old,  to  which  I 
belong,  called  '  The  Century.'  It  is  composed 
solely  of  authors,  artists,  and  (real)  amateurs. 
It  consists,  as  the  name  indicates,  of  one 
hundred  members,  and  it  is  limited  to  that 
number.  The  Club  embraces  the  leading 
authors  and  artists  of  our  city,  and  through 
its  members  I  shall  be  able  to  give  you  very 


YEARS   OF    STORM   AND   STRESS    219 

full  information  in  relation  to  all  your  enqui 
ries  about  art  and  artists  in  New  York  and 
Boston.  I  shall  take  pleasure  in  putting  you 
in  correspondence  with  some  of  our  Club 
who  are  more  familiar  with  the  subject  than 
I  am." 

If,  as  Kimball  suggests  in  other  letters,  the 
Rye  was  passing  through  "  a  purgatory  "  in 
Philadelphia,  after  Heidelberg  and  Munich 
and  Paris,  it  was  a  purgatory  very  close  to 
the  heaven  of  success.  Every  letter  from 
Kimball  carries  with  it  new  compliments. 
"  It  does  me  good  to  read  such  well-written 
and  such  critical,  really  critical,  articles  in  an 
American  magazine,"  he  writes  of  very  early 
papers  in  "  Sartain's."  The  Rye's  personal 
letters  were  to  him  "  like  water  to  a  thirst 
ing  spirit;"  and,  forthwith,  he  introduces  the 
young  journalist  to  promising  proprietors  as 
"a  literary  giant,  a  perfect  Polyphemus  in 
learning,  a  man  who  having  graduated  here 
and  learned  everything  that  America  could 
teach,  spent  five  years  trying  to  find  some 
body  skilled  enough  to  teach  him  more,  and 
returned  after  an  unsuccessful  search."  The 
"  terrible "  Griswold,  whom,  according  to 
Kimball,  it  was  the  fashion  in  Philadelphia 


220  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

"  to  abuse  and  call  names,"  accepts  an  article 
for  the  "  International "  from  the  new  author 
with  the  pleasant  assurance  that  he  "  will  be 
pleased  to  have  as  many  such  as  your  leisure 
will  permit,"  and  proceeds  to  pronounce  the 
Rye,  in  that  periodical,  "  by  all  odds  the  most 
promising  young  literary  man  in  Philadel 
phia,  the  most  finished  scholar."  Gaylord 
Clark  at  once  invites  the  young  Philadel- 
phian  to  his  place  on  the  Hudson,  his  in 
ducement  being  the  fact  that  "  Mr.  Irving  is 
directly  opposite;  I  can  send  to  him  three 
times  a  day." 

There  were  discouragements  to  counter 
act  the  success.  "  Meister  Karl,"  after  going 
through  the  "  Knickerbocker,"  was  making 
the  rounds  of  the  publishers  and  being  persis 
tently  refused.  Too  many  editors,  clamorous 
for  the  Rye's  articles,  had  to  regret  with  Cole, 
of  the  "  Musical  Times  "  in  New  York,  that 
"the  income  of  the  paper  will  not  warrant 
paying  for  communications ;  "  others  offered 
no  better  terms  than  Sartain,  who  could  give 
only  fifty  dollars  a  month  for  a  story,  a  "  Sum 
mary"  six  pages  long  of  the  month's  art, 
literature,  and  music,  and  the  editing  of  a 
special  department  called  "  Puck's  Portfolio." 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    221 

Gossip,  at  times,  bred  trouble  between  the 
Rye  and  Griswold,  and  Bayard  Taylor,  and 
Boker,  and  Kimball;  trouble  which,  in  the 
disjointed  condition  of  the  correspondence,  it 
would  be  more  than  useless  to  try  to  under 
stand.  However,  I  do  not  think  the  discour 
agements  were  very  serious  for  a  beginner 
with  all  life  before  him,  and  in  the  one  let 
ter  I  have  of  the  Rye's  written  during  this 
period,  his  account  of  himself  is  far  from 
melancholy. 


CHARLES   GODFREY    LELAND   TO   E.    P.    COLQUHOUN 

306  WALNUT  ST.,  PHILADELPHIA. 
(No  Date.) 

DEAR  DOCTOR,  —  I  received  your  inspiring 
and  old-time-recalling  document  by  the  last 
steamer.  As  it  did  me  good  in  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  word,  I  should  be  an  ungrateful 
outsider,  not  to  return  due  thanks.  As  for 
your  letter  of  last  summer, /0z  de  Chevalier,  I 
never  so  much  as  heard  of  it ;  not  a  line  have 
I  ever  received  from  you  before  this  last. 
Great  improvements  have  taken  place  in  our 
rascally  Quakerdelphia  since  I  last  wrote. 
So  many  kneips  a  la  Heidelberg  have  been 


222  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

established  that  you  might  fancy  yourself 
(where  you  now  probably  are)  in  Deutschland. 
German  has  become  popular  and  fashionable 
among  the  elite  and  times  are  improving.  I  am 
still  hammering  away  at  law,  and  still  recall 
ing  old  times,  old  pleasures,  and  old  familiar 
faces.  Europe  seems  still  only  like  yester 
day,  and  I  would  give  ten  years  of  life  to 
bring  back  Heidelberg,  London,  and  you.  I 
have  been  doing  much  small  potato  litera 
ture,  and  am  just  now  speculating  in  my  own 
mind  whether  I  shall  give  a  volume  of 
sketches  of  "  Continental  Life  and  Litera 
ture  "  to  the"  Knickerbocker,"  our  first  Ameri 
can  magazine.  Many  old  scenes  familiar  to 
us  both  are  described  in  them.  A  propos  de 
votre  frere,  I  shall  be  only  too  happy  to  use 
my  small  influence  in  making  his  work 
known.  If  newspaper  notices,  etc.,  can  do  any 
good,  I  am  thine.  ...  I  called  this  morning 
on  an  eminent  Yankee  Opersangerinn  and 
did  my  amiablest,  but  the  reception  was  cool. 
Mademoiselle  had  recently  sung  a  song  of 
mine  at  a  New  York  theatre  and,  as  she  in 
formed  me,  "  had  not  received  a  single  hand 
of  applause."  To  which  I  replied  that  I 
thought  the  affair  myself  to  be  very  poor 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND  STRESS    223 

trash.  To  which  most  truthful  and  candid 
bit  of  honesty  she  put  in  no  demurrer,  which 
raised  us,  I  believe,  highly  in  each  other's 
opinions.  So  we  go,  Morgen  wird  es  besser 
sein. 

As  to  what  you  say  about  success  in 
America.  If  I  consulted  my  own  desires  I 
would  tell  you  to  come  to  America  and  try. 
But  in  sober  truth  you  hardly  know  this 
country.  Commerce  —  mercantile  pursuits  — 
in  a  word,  business,  form  the  only  career  fairly 
open  to  those  who  would  carve  out  fortunes, 
living,  or  even  mere  subsistence  among  us. 
I  speak  more  particularly  of  Philadelphia. 
As  regards  ^profession,  if  a  man  will  study 
and  obstinately  excel,  there  is  little  doubt 
of  his  getting  along.  I  don't  like  to  give  a 
decided  answer  on  the  subject.  I  shall  very 
probably  turn  into  a  Rtdacteur  myself  and 
move  to  New  York  next  fall,  where  I  can  in 
form  you  over  said  point  to  greater  advan 
tage.  The  genuine  American  will  always 
rise  whenever  he  can,  in  consequence  of 
which  I  am  perfectly  qualified  to  assert  that, 
in  no  country  under  Heaven,  are  the  profes 
sions  so  overstocked  as  among  us.  Wait, 
however,  for  a  decision  until  I  get  to  New 


224  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

York  —  alors  nous  verrons.  If  I  were  in 
Europe  now,  it  strikes  me  that  a  Bohemien 
sort  of  a  life  would  be  just  the  thing,  such  as 
you  have  recently  tried  —  a  sort  of  respect 
able  courier.  En  passant,  let  me  remark  that 
my  work  purports  to  be  written  by  a  Courier 
who  takes  his  people  over  Earth,  and  through 
Heaven  and  Fairyland,  including  Vienna. 

As  for  love,  I  have  been  captivated  with 
about  176  beautiful-faced,  languid,  young 
Americaines.  Doctor,  there  is  no  country  in 
the  world  which  can  begin  to  compete  with 
ours  for  female  beauty,  as  far  as  face  goes. 
I  shall  visit  one  this  evening  who,  in  this 
respect,  is  almost  peerless  in  beauty.  But  — 
but  —  at  30,  alles  ist  weg  /  Phila.  bears  the 
palm  among  cities  in  this  respect,  for  New 
York  can  make  no  great  show  in  belles. 

Dec.  n,  1850. 

DEAR  DOCTOR, —  It  is  now  several  months 
since  the  above  was  penned  and  mislaid.  I 
often  intended  writing  you,  and  as  often  re 
solved  to  postpone  it,  until  I  should  be  settled 
in  New  York,  and  find  something  for  you. 
Since  then,  I  have  determined  to  remain  in 
my  native  city  of  Penn.  We  Americans  are 


YEARS   OF    STORM   AND   STRESS    225 

notoriously  unpunctual  and  but  indifferent 
correspondents,  while  the  bold  Britons,  to 
their  credit  be  it  said,  have  the  reputation  of 
failing  in  neither  respect.  Know,  oh  my  friend, 
that  since  writing  I  too  have  become  be 
trothed,  to  one  unanimously  admitted  to  be 
the  belle  des  belles  of  our  city.  How  pretty  she 
is !  ...  I  am  getting  up  a  literary  name  and 
pushing  at  law.  The  publishers  give  me  five 
dollars  a  page  [not  invariably,  he  was  soon 
to  find]  when  they  want  me,  and  I  am  still 
studying  law.  I  am  director  in  an  Art  Union, 
and  co-editor  of  a  weekly.  Am  to  deliver  a 
lecture  on  the  7th  of  January.  I  saw  Porter 
of  Heidelberg  a  few  evenings  since  at  Jenny 
Lind's  concert,  but  have  had  no  opportunity 
as  yet  of  speaking  with  him.  .  .  . 

This  is  about  the  most  unsatisfactory  coun 
try  to  travel  in  I  ever  met  with.  Railroads 
and  new  cities,  tearing  table  d ' holes,  brandy 
cock-tails,  mint  smashes,  and  prime  Havan- 
nahs,  form  about  the  sum  total  of  the  agre- 
mens  —  a  fearful  contrast  to  the  quiet,  com 
fortable,  old-fashioned  travel  in  the  cities  of 
Europe,  with  their  churches  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  silent  familiar-looking  auberges. 
Well  — would  that  we  were  both  in  Germany 


226  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

once  more  (with  our  ladies).  Would  that  we 
were  walking  on  the  terrace  of  the  old  Castle 
in  Heidelberg  by  moonlight !  Old  Castle ! 
How  long  it  is  since  I  have  seen  an  old  castle, 
or  an  old  church,  or  an  old  tower !  In  this 
country  of  bran-newness,  it  is  almost  a  com 
fort  to  see  even  an  old  woman,  of  which  there 
are  very  few,  save  among  the  darkies,  for  the 
white  American  is  by  no  means  a  long-lived 
animal.  Our  infernal  red-hot  summers,  which 
last  from  the  beginning  of  May  to  the  end 
of  October,  with  their  iced-brandy  drinks,  and 
our  killing  cold  winters,  which  occupy  the 
rest  of  the  year,  are  perfect  "  death  to  long- 
living."  I  saw  an  article  lately  in  a  paper  say 
ing  that  we  were  the  palest  and  most  melan 
choly  race  of  men  in  the  world,  and  I  believe 
that  we  are  (with  the  exception  of  the  sallow 
Bohemian  gipsies).  Do  you  know  that,  as  far 
as  taste  and  education  go,  I  do  most  atro 
ciously  envy  an  European.  I  could  like,  by 
Jove,  myself  to  live  within  the  sound  of 
old  Cathedral  bells  and  lead  my  life  for  the 
sake  of  enjoying  it  and  not  for  the  mere  sake 
of  work  and  progress.  A  distant  relative  of 
ours,  who  recently  made  a  large  fortune,  in 
one  year,  as  an  editor  in  California,  was  so 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    227 

much  admired  for  this  effort  of  genius  as  to 
have  his  portrait  and  biography  published  in 
a  Boston  paper,  as  a  creditable  example  to  the 
rising  generation.  That  is  a  spirit  which  I 
hate.  Damn  the  Gelt  as  gelt.  For  which  rea 
son  I  hope  that  some  day,  should  fortune  ever 
favour  me,  I  may  while  away  long  years  on 
the  Continent  in  the  autumn  of  life  in  com 
pany  with  those  I  love.  [Would  that  hope 
have  been  as  strong,  I  wonder,  could  he  have 
foreseen  its  perfect  fulfilment  when  the  win 
ter  of  life  found  him  in  Florence  ?]  Have  you 
ever  heard  of  a  play  (a  tragedy)  called  "  Cal- 
aynos,"  which  was  brought  out  at  London 
some  time  ago?  written  by  an  American. 
The  author,  named  G.  H.  Boker,  has  been  my 
intimate  friend  from  childhood.  He  has  writ 
ten  several  better  plays,  one  or  two  of  which 
will  be  acted  in  London,  before  long.  I  be 
lieve  that  it  was  at  Sadler's  Wells,  but  am  not 
certain.  It  was  a  year  ago,  however,  at  the 
only  theatre  in  London  where  Shakespeare  is 
ever  played,  which  may  give  you  some  clue. 
How  do  you  get  along  on  the  river  ?  Did  you 
row  much  during  the  past  two  summers  ?  I 
shall  never  forget  the  Regatta,  or,  for  that 
matter,  your  kindness  and  hospitality  gener- 


228  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

ally  to  me  while  in  London.  .  .  .  My  nom  de 
plume  is  the  Chevalier. 

Your  friend, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  letter  that,  as  early 
as  1850,  before  his  law  studies  were  finished, 
the  Rye  had  some  idea  of  trying  his  fortunes 
in  New  York.  It  was  natural  that  he  should, 
for  Kimball,  the  indefatigable,  never  stopped 
urging  it.  "  You  are,  in  Philadelphia,  get 
ting  too  much  mixed  up  in  petty  cliqueism," 
or  "  would  that  you  were  here  with  me  in  Go 
tham,  we  would  certainly  perfect  some  plan 
for  setting  the  Hudson  on  fire ;  "  is  the  refrain 
to  all  his  letters.  There  was  the  drawback, 
however,  that  something  definite  in  the  form 
of  paying  work  very  seldom  turned  up.  Kim- 
ball  usually  had  to  add  that  he  might  have  to 
work  there  "  a  year  absolutely  for  nothing," 
and  to  assure  him  that  "  it  is  better,  if  you  are 
young  and  energetic,  to  have  the  influence 
with  a  periodical  which  gratuitous  contribu 
tions  will  bring,  rather  than  the  money  which 
you  might  receive  for  them."  These  passages 
I  quote  as  suggestive  documents  in  the  history 
not  merely  of  the  Rye's  career,  but  of  that  of 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    229 

almost  all  American  men  of  letters  sixty  years 
ago.  Kimball  grew  more  and  more  insistent, 
not  realising,  perhaps,  how  indispensable  it 
was  that  the  Rye  should  earn  money.  Finally, 
in  the  late  autumn  of  1852,  he  returned  to  the 
charge.  "  You  know  I  have  but  one  opinion,"  he 
wrote  on  November  13,  "  it  is  that  you  should 
come  to  New  York  now,  put  down  your  stakes, 
and  go  to  work.  Live  economically,  be  indus 
trious  and  determined,  and  leave  the  rest  to 
Providence.  I  know  you  cant  fail  if  you  fol 
low  this  advice.  You  know  I  will  do  all  /  can. 
But  you  must  come  here  and  be  here  in  order 
to  bring  anything  to  pass.  Do  you  remember 
the  fable  where  the  foolish  one  declared  he 
never  would  go  in  the  water  till  he  had  learned 
to  swim  ?  I  leave  you  to  apply  it."  Whether 
it  was  on  the  strength  of  this  argument  or 
not,  I  cannot  say,  but  I  learn  from  the  dates 
of  Henry  Leland's  letters  that,  by  the  2oth  of 
the  same  month,  the  Rye  was  in  New  York, 
and,  very  shortly  after,  installed  in  the  office 
of  Barnum's  paper  at  the  not  very  munificent 
salary  of  $500  a  year.  I  could  present,  to  any 
one  whom  it  might  concern,  the  note,  dated 
January  6,  1853,  and  signed  Rufus  W.  Gris- 
wold,  certifying  that  "  the  bearer,  Mr.  Charles 


230  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

G.  Leland,  is  Associate  Editor  of  '  The  Illus 
trated  News,' "  and  desiring  that  he  "  may  be 
admitted  to  all  places  open  to  the  representa 
tives  of  this  Journal." 

Barnum  was  then  in  the  first  flush  of  no 
toriety,  prepared  to  run  all  creation  when 
necessary,  and,  in  the  meanwhile  and  in  part 
nership  with  the  brothers  Beech,  to  run  a  big 
illustrated  weekly.  Barnum  had  asked  Dr. 
Rufus  Griswold  to  be  the  editor  of  the  "  Il 
lustrated  News,"  and  Griswold  —  "journalist, 
literary  critic,  discoverer,  and  monitor  of 
poets  and  poetesses  "  —  had  accepted,  partly 
in  order  to  propose  the  post  of  assistant  to 
the  "young  Leland,"  who  had  been  introduced 
to  him  by  Kimball,  and  in  whom  he  foresaw 
large  possibilities.  "  Irritable  and  vindictive" 
as  Griswold  was,  the  "young  Leland "  was 
with  him  a  privileged  character  to  the  end  of 
his  life.  Successful  men  are  not,  as  a  rule, 
troubled  with  gratitude  to  those  who  first 
helped  them  toward  success.  But  the  Rye 
never  forgot  that  it  was  Griswold  who  placed 
his  foot  on  the  first  rung  of  the  ladder,  and 
to  the  end  he  spoke  with  genuine  affection 
of  Barnum.  Some  of  his  friends  might  be 
shocked  at  the  very  idea  of  even  speaking  to 


>^     ^  ' 


*•  -r^" 


^^^^ 


FROM   CHARLES   G.    LELAND  TO   MRS.    PENNELL 
Written   in   Paris 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND    STRESS    231 

"  the  Showman,"  to  say  nothing  of  working 
for  him.  The  Rye  appreciated  Barnum's 
kindness.  "  Uncle  Barnum,"  he  says  in  one 
place,  "  was  always  good  as  gold  to  me." 
Moreover,  in  Barnum  there  was  the  oddness, 
the  picturesqueness,  that-  never  failed  to  at 
tract  him  in  people,  as  in  art  and  literature. 
His  recollections  of  this  first  New  York  period 
are  dominated  by  the  flamboyant  personality 
of  the  great  showman,  though  most  people 
would  have  thought  that,  in  dominating  any 
thing  in  American  journalism,  Griswold  could 
have  had  no  rival. 

A  man  of  "  a  general  presence  rather  the 
reverse  of  prepossessing,  yet  strangely  dis 
tinct,"  is  the  impression  Mr.  Henry  James, 
from  vague  meetings  in  early  boyhood,  has 
carried  of  Griswold  through  the  years;  a 
man  "with  a  lurid  complexion,  long,  lank, 
damp-looking  hair,  and  the  tone  of  concilia 
tion,  unless  I  do  him  wrong,"  —  but,  however 
unprepossessing,  a  man  who,  by  dint  of  much 
compiling  and  editing  of  collections  of  liter 
ary  specimens,  rarer  half  a  century  ago,  be 
came  a  power  among  the  men  and  women 
the  young  Philadelphian  now  began  to  meet. 
New  York,  as  well  as  Boston,  had  its  "  literary 


232  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

set,"  and  into  this  "  set "  the  Rye  was  intro 
duced  by  Griswold,  and  by  it  was  well  re 
ceived,  for  he  had,  as  further  credentials,  good 
looks,  a  striking  individuality,  and  various 
articles  in  the  "  Knickerbocker."  In  the  hotel 
at  the  corner  of  Park  Place  and  Broadway, 
where  he  lived,  he  met  many  literary  people, 
for  it  was  kept  by  a  certain  Dan  Bixby,  who 
had  been  a  publisher,  and  who  now,  as  hotel- 
keeper,  was  apt  to  gather  authors  about  him : 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  for  one,  remembered 
as  "  a  moody  man  who  sat  by  the  stove  and 
spoke  to  no  one."  N.  P.  Willis,  pointed  out 
to  the  boy  years  before  as  a  celebrity,  —  "a 
young  gentleman  then  with  curly  hair  and 
very  foppish  air,"  —  was  still  a  shining  light 
in  New  York,  still  by  sheer  swagger  and  dan 
gerous  "  Hurry-Graphs  "  forcing  the  public 
to  accept  him  at  his  own  estimation,  even 
while  the  few  laughed  at  "  Niminy-Piminy 
Willis  "  and  his  own  sister  slanged  him  as 
"  Jenny  Jessamy."  Bryant,  the  popular  poet 
he  will  never  be  again ;  the  Misses  Warner, 
scarcely  known  by  name  now,  but  classics  to 
the  generations  brought  up  on  "Queechy" 
and  "  The  Wide,  Wide  World  ; "  Alice  and 
Phoebe  Gary,  gentle  and  ladylike  as  their 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    233 

verses;  John  Godfrey  Saxe,  another  of  the 
neglected;  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  his  no 
toriety  yet  some  distance  ahead  of  him, — 
these  and  many  more  made  a  literary  group  as 
important  to  themselves,  if  not  to  the  world, 
as  the  Boston  Club  or  the  Brook  Farm  philo 
sophers. 

Now  and  then,  a  greater  still  appeared  in 
their  midst.  Once,  at  a  dinner,  the  "  young 
Leland  "  talked,  actually  talked  with  Washing 
ton  Irving.  "  I  remember  him  as  a  man  of  very 
winsome  manner,  which  showed  itself  sweetly 
and  unaffectedly  at  his  first  word,"  is  the  pic 
ture  of  Irving  in  the  "  Memoranda."  "  Thus 
when  I  first  met  him  he  was  surrounded  by 
great  men,  —  Bryant,  Willis,  Bancroft,  —  but 
when  I  was  introduced  he  suddenly  exclaimed, 
4  Oh  !'  or  *  What !  Mr.  Leland ! '  in  a  manner 
which  thrilled  me  with  pleasure  and  astonish 
ment.  I  often  wish  that  I  were  a  distinguished 
person  so  that  I  could  confer  pleasure  on 
young  people  by  thus  noticing  them.  That 
is  the  best  of  being  somebody :  it  makes  your 
friends  somebodies,  —  reflects  light  on  minor 
planets."  Once,  too,  the  "young  Leland" 
rendered  Edgar  Poe,  who  could  never  know 
of  it,  the  kindest  service  by  burning  some 


234  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

of  the  gossip  Griswold  had  collected,  or  in 
vented,  and  so  saved  the  world  a  little,  any 
way,  of  the  unsavoury  scandal  the  scavengers 
of  literature  love  to  rake  up  about  the  names 
of  the  great.  It  is  to  Griswold's  credit  that 
he  took  this  high-handed  interference  "very 
amiably,"  and  it  should  also  be  remembered 
in  his  favour  that  the  man  who  worked  so  long 
with  and  under  him  as  his  assistant  held  that, 
as  regards  Poe,  "  he  was  not  so  much  to 
blame  as  a  score  of  writers  have  made  out." 

Entertaining  as  this  "  literary  set "  was, 
most  of  the  people  in  it  pass  as  shadows 
across  the  pages  of  the  "  Memoirs  "  that  are 
filled  with  Barnum's  substantial  presence. 
For  them  the  Rye  had  the  sympathy  inter 
ests  in  common  create ;  Barnum  stirred  his 
imagination  in  New  York,  as  the  slaver  had 
in  Marseilles  and  Navone  in  Rome ;  Bar 
num's  "  fifty  million  unparalleled  moral  won 
ders  "  appealed  to  the  passion  for  the  mar 
vellous  of  the  overworked  journalist,  even 
as  the  book  of  "  Curiosities  for  the  Ingenious  " 
had  enraptured  the  schoolboy  at  Jamaica 
Plain.  What  he  found  in  Barnum  shows 
really  what  there  was  in  himself.  Barnum 
passed  for  an  unusually  clever  Yankee,  and 


YEARS   OF   STORM  AND   STRESS    235 

nothing  more,  to  the  majority  of  men.  To 
the  Rye,  the  Lover  of  the  Odd,  he  was  "  a 
genius  like  Rabelais,  but  one  who  employed 
business  and  humanity  for  material,  instead 
of  literature,  just  as  Abraham  Lincoln,  who 
was  a  brother  of  the  same  band,  employed 
patriotism  and  politics.  All  three  of  them 
expressed  vast  problems,  financial,  intellec 
tual,  or  natural,  by  the  brief  arithmetic  of  a 
joke."  This  was  a  sort  of  "  arithmetic  "  his 
sense  of  humour  helped  him  to  tackle.  He 
has  left  a  pleasant  picture  of  proprietor  and 
assistant  editor  preparing  together  the  hu 
morous  column  which  was  a  feature  of  the 
paper,  the  proprietor  deferring  to  the  assist 
ant  "  as  a  small  schoolboy  defers  to  an  elder 
on  the  question  of  a  game  of  marbles  or  hop 
scotch,"  the  two  editing  their  puns,  reading 
their  good  things  to  each  other,  as  happy 
as  boys  at  play.  A  book  of  jokes  "  By  Bar- 
num  and  Hans  Breitmann  "  would,  the  Rye 
adds,  "  have  been  a  very  nice  book  indeed." 

One  humorous  column  could  not  make  the 
fortunes  of  the  paper.  Whatever  Barnum 
may  have  wanted,  the  Rye  refused  to  use  it 
as  an  advertisement  for  freaks  or  shows, 
even  if  they  were  the  biggest  on  earth,  and 


236  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

even  if  American  journalism,  out  of  his  office, 
was  the  slough  of  corruption  it  had  seemed 
to  Poe;  and  unless  the  paper  was  run  as  an 
advertising  medium,  no  man,  single-handed, 
could  have  ensured  its  success.  From  the 
first,  everything  had  been  done  solely  by 
the  editor  and  his  assistant  in  the  Literary 
Department,  with  Frank  Leslie  as  chief  en 
graver.  After  a  while,  Griswold,  busy  about 
many  things,  a  divorce  among  others,  left  the 
office  altogether.  The  pay  of  the  assistant 
was  doubled  by  "  Uncle  Barnum,"  but  the 
work  was  hard,  the  proprietors  were  not  in 
accord,  and  he  wearied  of  struggling  against 
the  impossible.  He  resigned,  to  be  replaced 
by  a  clergyman,  which  may  have  been  part  of 
Barnum's  fun.  It  was  a  joke,  however,  that  did 
not  pay,  and  the  weekly  promptly  perished. 

The  Rye  went  back  to  Philadelphia,  not 
much  better  off,  except  in  knowledge  of  edit 
ing,  than  when  he  had  left.  There  was  no 
temptation  to  return  to  the  law ;  he  could 
not  live  on  literature  alone ;  he  could  not 
look  to  his  father  for  an  income.  Journalism 
was  still  his  one  resource,  —  a  resource,  let 
me  say  at  once,  that  he  never  held  lightly. 
At  its  worst,  it  amused  him  with  its  endless 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    237 

occasions  of  seeing  odd  people  and  hearing 
odd  things ;  at  its  best,  it  inspired  him  with 
its  opportunities  for  good  work  and  wide  in 
fluence.  But  a  post  on  a  newspaper  was  not 
always  to  be  had  for  the  asking.  Magazines 
were  open  to  everybody,  but  magazines  paid 
little,  if  at  all.  There  was  an  interval  of  de 
pression  :  his  marriage  indefinitely  postponed, 
inactivity  forced  upon  him. 

He  was  so  discouraged  that,  in  the  year 
of  his  return  (1854),  he  had  some  thought  of 
seeking  a  government  office,  the  salvation 
of  many  literary  men  of  his  generation.  His 
friend  Simon  Stevens,  from  Washington, 
urged  him  to  apply  without  delay  for  a  foreign 
consulate,  first  at  Rome,  where  the  office  hap 
pened  to  be  vacant,  and  then  at  Constanti 
nople  ;  "  it  does  n't  pay,"  Stevens  added.  The 
Rye  must  have  begun  to  think  that  nothing 
he  undertook  could  pay.  In  the  fall  his  mo 
ther  died,  a  severe  loss  to  him,  for  he  had 
always  been  devoted  to  her.  Probably  never, 
throughout  his  long  life,  did  his  prospects 
look  so  black.  It  was  the  more  incompre 
hensible  because  success  of  another  kind  had 
come  rapidly.  He  could  get  no  regular  em 
ployment,  and  yet  in  his  six  years  of  work  he 


238   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

had  so  well  established  his  literary  reputation 
that,  just  as  things  were  at  their  blackest  in 
that  unfortunate  year  of  1854,  he  found  him 
self  included  among  Griswold's  Prose  Writ 
ers.  He  kept  up  his  courage,  however ;  he 
tried  his  luck  with  articles,  he  collected  poems 
of  dreams  for  an  anthology,  and,  at  last,  in  the 
spring  of  1855,  the  outlook  suddenly  bright 
ened  with  an  offer  that  came  to  him  through 
his  old  friend,  George  Boker.  The  letter 
bringing  it  lies  before  me. 

GEORGE  H.  BOKER  TO  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

May  17,  1853. 

MY  DEAR  CHARLEY,  —  Would  you  like  to 
assume  the  duties  of  first  Assistant  Editor  of 
the  "  Evening  Bulletin  "  ?  If  you  would,  answer 
at  once ;  but  say  nothing  about  the  matter  to 
any  one  else,  for  the  present  at  least. 

Thine, 

GEO.  H.  BOKER. 

Naturally,  the  Rye  did  like  to  assume  the 
duties.  Alexander  Cummings  was  the  pro 
prietor  of  the  "  Bulletin,"  and  Gibson  Ban 
nister  Peacock  the  editor.  Peacock  was  going 
away  for  a  holiday,  and  the  new  assistant  had 


YEARS  OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    239 

to  act  as  his  understudy.  His  work  was  a 
column  leader  every  day,  book  reviews,  and 
paragraphs. 

That  the  Rye  enjoyed  this  new  life  to  the 
utmost,  as  he  says  in  his  "  Memoirs,"  I  can 
well  believe,  though  it  was  anything  but  play. 
To  learn  to  write  leaders  for  a  weekly  he 
had  found  a  dreadful  ordeal,  which  is  hard  for 
me  to  realise,  remembering  as  I  do  the  facil 
ity  with  which  he  wrote  everything  in  the  last 
part  of  his  life.  On  a  daily,  the  ordeal  was 
more  severe,  though,  at  least,  there  was  not 
the  difficulty  of  "  rattling  up  a  good  subject," 
as  he  calls  it.  Motives  for  editorials  were  only 
too  plentiful.  There  were,  to  begin  with, 
plenty  of  evils  at  home  to  be  fought.  In  the 
city  founded  by  Penn  that  people  might  be 
free  to  go  to  Heaven  their  own  way,  religious 
intolerance  just  then  raged  until,  more  than 
once,  its  sky  was  as  blood-red,  as  Fanny 
Kemble  described  it,  with  the  light  of  burn 
ing  churches.  And  this  was  the  period  when 
volunteer  fire  companies,  the  "  brigand  fire 
men  "  of  Mr.  Sidney  Fisher's  phrase,  were  as 
deadly  enemies  as  the  rival  factions  of  a 
mediaeval  town,  and  every  fire  alarm  was  the 
signal  for  a  fight  in  streets  made  for  peace. 


24o   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

A  state  of  terrorism  prevailed,  the  necessity 
for  strong  action  was  great,  and  the  risk  to 
any  one  who  ventured  to  take  it  was  serious. 
But  the  danger  was  an  incentive  to  a  struggle 
as  fierce,  though  there  were  no  barricades  to 
be  built,  though  it  was  the  people,  not  the 
rulers,  who  must  be  overthrown,  as  that  in 
which  le  citoyen  Charles  had  led  in  Paris. 
Now  an  editor,  armed  with  other  weapons, 
he  threw  himself,  heart  and  soul,  into  the 
revolt  against  disorder.  He  wrote  editorial 
after  editorial.  In  print,  that  all  might  see,  he 
urged  the  mayor  —  Richard  Vaux  held  the 
office  —  to  immediate  and  severe  measures. 
He  did  all  that  could  be  done  through  a 
newspaper,  and  the  reform  that  followed 
owed  much  to  his  initiative. 

More  absorbing  still  were  the  national 
problems  fast  approaching  a  crisis.  These 
were  the  years  immediately  preceding  the 
Civil  War,  when  the  question  of  abolition 
had  kindled  national  emotion  to  white  heat. 
That  it  was  one  over  which  Penn's  city  should 
hesitate,  would  seem  impossible,  if  it  were 
not  true.  Years  before,  there  had  been  anti- 
abolition  riots,  —  one  ever  memorable  from 
which  Whittier  had  escaped,  disguised  in 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    241 

wig  and  white  overcoat,  —  and  the  sympathy 
of  a  large  proportion  of  Philadelphians  re 
mained  with  the  South.  Many,  like  my  own 
grandfathers,  came  from  Virginia  and  Mary 
land  ;  many,  who  would  not  have  been  slave 
holders  themselves,  did  not  see  their  right  to 
prevent  the  Southerner  from  holding  slaves  if 
he  chose.  Probably  few  towns  in  the  Union 
were  so  divided  on  the  burning  problem  :  the 
reason  that  certainly  in  few  towns  was  the 
battle,  before  the  war  broke  out,  fought  so 
passionately.  The  Rye,  however,  knew  no 
hesitation.  He  was  an  abolitionist  from  the 
moment  the  question  of  abolition  became  ur 
gent,  and  his  faith  was  staunch  in  the  Union. 
He  hated  slavery,  he  loved  the  negro,  as  later 
he  was  to  love  the  Indian  and  the  Gypsy. 
He  had  no  patience  with  compromise;  always, 
after  that  historic  first  great  Republican  meet 
ing  held  in  the  La  Pierre  House  in  Philadel 
phia,  he  was  at  the  front.  And  though  his 
battle-ground  was  the  newspaper,  this,  in 
every  way,  was  a  more  responsible  business 
than  tying  a  red  sash  round  his  waist,  setting 
the  student's  jaunty  cap  on  his  head,  and 
swaggering  forth,  a  Dumas  hero,  to  fight  other 
people's  battles  in  a  strange  town.  All  that 


242   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

had  come  down  to  him  from  the  old  sorcerer 
and  the  many  antiquaries  among  his  ances 
tors  lay  quiescent  for  the  time,  and  the  grim- 
ness  of  the  grandfather  Leland  was  upper 
most,  as  he  wrote  the  articles  which  he  hoped 
would  help  to  save  his  country  from  disaster. 
He  wrote  what  he  thought  the  truth,  boldly, 
with  an  eloquence  his  opponents  mistook  for 
bitterness,  and  some  Southern  editors  pro 
testing,  and  the  war  not  yet  being  proclaimed, 
the  proprietor  was  frightened  and  put  a  stop 
to  them. 

His  work  for  the  "  Bulletin  "  would  have 
exhausted  most  journalists.  But  it  was  not 
enough  for  him.  He  was  also  editing  "  Gra 
ham's  Magazine,"  which,  like  the  "  Knicker 
bocker,"  had  a  great  tradition  to  keep  up.  Poe 
had  edited  it,  almost  all  the  literary  men  of 
America  had  contributed  to  it.  He  was  trans 
lating  Heine  —  the  "  Pictures  of  Travel "  and 
the  "  Book  of  Songs."  He  was  writing  articles 
and  books  of  his  own.  All  this,  of  course, 
brought  him  a  larger  income  than  he  had  ever 
yet  earned  for  himself,  even  if  "  Graham's  "  only 
paid  him  fifty  dollars  a  month,  his  Heine 
translations  only  seventy-five  cents  a  page. 
His  father  added  a  liberal  allowance.  It  was 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    243 

when  he  was  making  most,  it  seemed  to  him 
afterwards  in  looking  back,  that  his  father 
suddenly  grew  liberal,  just  as  it  was  when 
his  own  bank  account  dwindled  that  a  check 
was  put  upon  his  father's  liberality.  How 
ever,  he  was  quick  to  profit  by  the  first  com 
bination  between  his  own  financial  success 
and  his  father's  generosity,  and  in  1856,  after 
five  long  years  of  waiting,  he  was  married. 
The  marriage  took  place  on  the  iyth  of  Jan 
uary  at  the  Tenth  Street  house,  where  the 
Rodney  Fishers  were  then  living,  and  I  like 
to  think  that  the  idols  and  the  strange  beasts 
were  looking  on  from  the  dim  walls,  that  the 
great  jars  and  the  rare  porcelain  were  filling 
the  quiet  Philadelphia  parlour  with  the  colour 
and  the  mystery  of  the  East,  for  there  could 
not  have  been  a  more  appropriate  background. 
And  I  wonder  if  another  American  of  this 
generation  would  have  remembered  across 
the  years,  as  the  two  chief  incidents  of  his 
wedding,  a  private  explanation  given  before 
hand  of  the  symbolism  of  the  wedding  ring 
by  Bishop  Wilbur,  who  performed  the  cere 
mony,  with  his  own  happy  consciousness  of 
knowing  a  good  deal  more  about  it  than  the 
Bishop ;  and  his  friends'  prediction  of  good 


244   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

luck  because  only  one  clergyman  was  present, 
with  his  own  joyful  proving  that  they  were 
wrong,  because  there  was  a  second  among  the 
coloured  waiters ! 

After  his  marriage,  he  went  to  live  at  the 
La  Pierre  House.  It  was  then  the  centre  of 
a  good  deal  of  social  life.  Most  people  of 
note  who  came  to  Philadelphia  stopped  there, 
and  he  found  time — how,  only  he  could  say 

—  to  see  many  of  them,  Ole  Bull,  Thalberg, 
Thackeray  the  most  notable  in  his  memory. 
Time  he   found,   too,  for  the  adventure  of 
speech  so  dear  to  him,  as  when  he  astounded 
the  passing  Magyar  almost  to  tears  with  an 
unexpected  Bassama  Teremtete  ;  or  for  joy  in 
one  of  the  "  strange  coincidences  "  he  loved, 
as  when  an  Unknown,  playing  Berserker  in 
Philadelphia   taverns,    asked   for  his   name, 
shouted  "  Charles  Leland,"  and  then  vanished 
into  the  Ewigkeit.   Here  was  a  ray  of  romance 

—  of  mystery  —  in  the  daily  routine  of  hard 
work. 

But  "  I  began  to  weary  of  Philadelphia," 
the  Rye  says  in  his  "  Memoirs."  Probably  it 
was  not  so  much  weariness,  as  a  sudden  re 
volt  when  the  hour  of  disenchantment  came, 
and  he,  as  Poe  before  him,  learned  that  news- 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    245 

papers  are  not  run  from  disinterested  motives. 
He  left  the  "  Bulletin,"  and  Philadelphia  with 
it,  and  tried  New  York  for  the  second  time. 
His  name  now  was  far  better  known,  and 
he  had  not  long  to  wait.  He  contributed 
to  Appleton's  "  Cyclopaedia,"  then  edited  by 
George  Ripley  and  Charles  A.  Dana.  He 
worked  for  the  "  New  York  Times,"  taking 
Hurlbut's  place  as  foreign  editor.  He  gave 
his  mornings  to  Frank  Leslie,  then  launch 
ing  a  dozen  magazines  and  newspapers.  He 
edited  "Vanity  Fair,"  — Stoddard,  Aldrich, 
Artemus  Ward  his  collaborators ;  that  is,  he 
lived  the  life  of  the  journalist  about  town, 
except  that  he  held  aloof  from  "  the  Bohemi 
ans  "  who  used  to  meet  at  PfafF s  tavern  and 
who  thought  themselves  the  rivals  of  Mur- 
ger's  heroes. 

Of  all  the  events  of  this  second  sojourn  in 
New  York,  however,  perhaps  he  remembered 
best  one  dwelt  upon  at  length  in  the  "  Memo 
randa."  "  I  saw  Washington  Irving  in  his 
coffin,"  I  read  in  the  volume  for  1893,  when 
the  Rye's  thoughts  were  busy  with  the  old 
days,  and  1859  was  but  as  yesterday  to  him. 
"  Irving's  face,"  he  goes  on,  "  seemed  to  have 
become  30  years  younger,  very  beautiful,  with 


246  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

an  expression  in  it  suggestive  of  a  smile.  .  .  . 
When  the  coffin  was  laid  in  the  grave  on  the 
hillside  overlooking  the  Hudson,  the  sky  was 
suddenly  illumined  by  the  most  magnificent 
and  marvellous  sunset  which  I  can  remem 
ber.  It  inspired  me  with  a  deep  awe  as  if  the 
heavens  would  illuminate  the  scene,  and  as  if 
it  were  indeed  true  that,  when  the  body  is 
first  committed  to  earth,  the  soul  is  first  ad 
mitted  to  the  Land  of  Light  above." 

When  he  was  busiest,  the  storm  broke. 
Lincoln  was  elected.  Fort  Sumter  was  fired 
on.  The  war  was  begun.  It  was  a  moment 
of  financial  depression  in  the  North,  and  many 
journalists  felt  it,  though  already  journalism 
was  beginning  to  thrive  on  war.  One  by  one, 
the  Rye's  engagements  failed.  He  left  the 
"  Times  "  owing  to  Hurlbut's  return  ;  "  Vanity 
Fair"  came  to  an  end;  Frank  Leslie  no  longer 
needed  his  services.  There  remained  only  the 
"  Knickerbocker,"  which  had  been  taken  over 
by  Gilmore,  who  was  trying  his  best  to  give 
it  a  new  lease  of  life.  Of  a  sudden,  as  the 
quiet  gray  cover  blazed  into  orange,  the 
tone  of  the  articles  became  violently  political, 
and  the  Rye,  who  had  accepted  the  post  of 
editor,  with  half-ownership  as  pay,  turned  it 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    247 

into  a  strong  Republican  monthly.  He  worked 
for  it,  as  he  had  for  the  "  Bulletin,"  with  fer 
vour,  almost  with  exaltation.  He  strove,  as 
so  many  others  were  striving,  to  stem  the  tide 
of  pessimism  sweeping  over  the  North;  he 
predicted  such  a  period  of  prosperity,  close  at 
hand,  "  as  no  one  ever  dreamt  of ; "  he  wrote 
article  after  article  in  "  a  wild  enthusiastic 
style  of  triumph."  To  "  the  outpourings  of  a 
fanatical  Puritan  in  the  time  of  Cromwell," 
they  were  compared.  But  it  was  a  crisis  that 
called  for  fanaticism,  and  the  articles  had  their 
effect.  Unfortunately,  before  this  change  in 
its  programme,  the  "  Knickerbocker  "  had  lost 
its  hold  upon  the  public.  To  use  it  as  a 
mouthpiece  for  the  Rye's  plea  of  "  Emanci 
pation  for  the  sake  of  the  white  man,"  was 
to  pour  "the  wildest  of  new  wine  into  the 
weakest  of  old  bottles."  Gilmore  decided  to 
establish  an  entirely  new  political  monthly 
with  a  new  name,  "The  Continental,"  vir 
tually  the  only  political  magazine  devoted 
to  the  Republican  cause  issued  during  the 
war.  It  was  published  in  Boston,  and  to  that 
town,  early  in  December,  1861,  the  Rye  fol 
lowed  it. 

Those   were   the   great   days  of    literary 


248  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Boston,  the  greatest,  perhaps,  of  the  Club, 
and  the  young  editor,  with  a  fine  record  of 
work,  and  many  letters,  was  introduced  to 
"all  that  brilliant  circle  which  shone  when 
Boston  was  at  its  brightest  in  1862."  He  met 
every  one,  —  Emerson,  Holmes,  Longfellow, 
Lowell,  Agassiz.  He  was  asked  to  the  Club. 
He  figured  at  the  Saturday  dinner.  After 
Philadelphia  and  New  York,  he  seemed  living 
again  in  the  atmosphere  of  Heidelberg  and 
Munich.  And  he  had  not  outgrown  the  age 
of  hero-worship,  for  which  his  capacity  was 
unlimited.  Even  when  he  wrote  his  "  Me 
moirs,"  he  had  not  recovered  from  the  old 
surprise  to  find  that  he  could  pass  success 
fully  "  the  grand  ordeal "  of  the  famous  Sat 
urdays  ;  that  he  was  given  the  place  of  honour 
between  Emerson  and  Holmes  ;  that  Holmes 
approved  of  him,  commending  his  modesty, 
which  he  had  not  known  to  be  among  his 
virtues ;  that  Lowell  asked  him  to  supper  in 
Cambridge  in  order  to  consult  him  about  the 
new  "  Biglow  Papers,"  then  going  through 
the  press,  though  that  there  should  have  been 
any  new  "  Biglow  Papers  "  at  all  was  against 
the  "  critical  judgment  of  Lowell,  who  did  n't 
believe  in '  resuscitations.' "  "  We  hear  no  good 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    249 

of  the  posthumous  Lazarus,"  he  had  written 
to  Mr.  Norton  several  months  before. 

I  have  searched  again,  and  yet  again, 
through  my  files  of  yellowing  papers  and 
through  the  "  Memoranda,"  but  I  can  discover 
only  a  very  few  letters  and  a  few  chance  pas 
sages  that  refer  to  the  year  in  Boston.  From 
Dr.  Holmes,  there  is  a  letter  of  many  years 
later  that  will  be  quoted  in  its  place,  and  the 
length  at  which  Holmes  gives  in  it  the  news 
of  members  of  the  Club  explains  how  well  the 
Rye  had  got  to  know  them.  What  he  thought 
of  no  less  distinguished  a  member  than  Em 
erson,  one  of  the  chance  passages  in  the 
"  Memoranda"  reveals.  Emerson  was  so  accus 
tomed  to  unqualified  deference,  that  the  im 
pression  he  was  making  on  the  young  Phila- 
delphian  would  probably  have  come  as  a 
shock  to  him :  "  Emerson  dabbled  with  mys 
ticism  and  paddled  in  metempsychosis,  and 
shirked  pantheism,  as  did  Carlyle,  while 
using  it  as  a  garment,  and  made  beautiful 
talkee-talkee  with  free  thought,  and  posed  as 
a  liberal  mind,  and  exalted  Goethe ;  but 
would  have  died  of  blushes  and  sunk  into 
his  boots  before  Greek  fleshliness.  So  he 
once  said  to  me,  and  that  rather  rudely  and 


250  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

uncalled  for,  that '  Heine  was  a  quack  and 
charlatan  in  literature,'  which,  considering 
that  I  had  translated  the  two  principal  works 
of  Heine,  I  thought  very  unkind.  And  this 
was  at  an  '  Atlantic '  Saturday  dinner  before 
Holmes  and  Lowell  and  Palfrey  and  many 
more,  in  1862,  and  it  hurts  me  to  this  day." 

The  one  note  —  that  is,  the  only  one  be 
longing  to  this  period  —  from  Lowell  reveals 
as  much  of  another  kind,  and  in  another  way, 
slight  though  it  be  compared  to  the  endless 
pages  Lowell  wrote  to  his  intimate  friends. 
In  its  careful  preservation,  enclosed  in  the 
little  old-fashioned  envelope,  with  the  long 
superseded  stamp,  and  securely  fastened  in  a 
volume  of  "  Poems,"  —  the  literary  relic  in  its 
shrine,  —  I  can  see  how  it  was  prized  by  the 
Rye,  and  his  attitude  towards  Lowell  was 
doubtless  that  of  the  younger  men  of  his  gen 
eration.  It  is  pleasant  to  add,  as  a  sort  of  par 
enthesis,  that  this  attitude  in  his  case  was  not 
weakened  by  years.  When  Lowell  was  sent 
from  Madrid  to  London  in  1881,  Dr.  Holmes 
wrote  to  him :  "  Leland  (Hans  Breitmann), 
who  has  been  living  in  London  some  years, 
says  you  will  be  the  most  popular  American 
minister  we  have  ever  sent,"  —  a  prophecy  ad- 


YEARS   OF    STORM   AND    STRESS    251 

mirably  fulfilled.  "  Our  Club,"  referred  to  in 
Lowell's  letter,  is,  of  course,  the  Saturday 
Club ;  the  society  he  met  there,  on  the  whole 
better  than  any  England  provided,  was  his 
estimate  of  it  even  in  1883,  when  he  had  had 
a  fair  chance  for  comparison.  The  "  notice," 
whether  of  the  "  Poems  "  or  of  "  The  Biglow 
Papers  "  it  is  impossible  now  to  tell,  has  van 
ished,  as  the  most  flattering  notices  will,  once 
they  have  served  their  turn  in  review  or 
paper.  The  letter  is  dated  1861,  and  is  from 
Elmwood,  —  "  the  place  I  love  best,"  Lowell 
described  it  to  his  old  friend,  Charles  F. 
Briggs,  that  very  same  year. 


JAMES   RUSSELL    LOWELL   TO   CHARLES    GODFREY    LELAND 

It  is  only  too  flattering  [is  the  abrupt 
beginning].  I  thought  our  Club  did  not 
meet  Christmas  week,  or  I  should  have  been 
there  and  claimed  you  as  my  guest.  Let  me 
engage  you  now  for  the  last  Saturday  in  the 
month.  I  shall  call  upon  you  the  first  time  I 
come  to  Boston,  which  will  be  next  Saturday. 
I  have  a  vacation  before  long,  and  then  I 
shall  hope  to  see  more  of  you. 

I  was  infinitely  diverted  by  your  extracts 


252  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

from  the  Ballad  and  shall  be  greatly  obliged 
for  a  copy  of  the  whole. 
With  many  thanks, 

Cordially  yours, 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 

P.  S.  I  mean  it  is  the  notice  of  J.  R.  L. 
that  is  too  flattering.  I  know  not  what  else 
to  say,  except  that  I  am  pleased  for  all  that. 
I  send  my  beso  la  mano  to  the  author  with 
many  thanks. 

Another  note  from  Lowell  is  preserved 
with  equal  care  in  the  same  volume,  where 
both  have  lain  undisturbed  now  almost  half 
a  century.  The  second  is  not  to  the  Rye, 
however,  but  to  give  his  address  to  Professor 
Child,  —  a  business-like,  hasty  little  scribble 
of  a  few  lines,  the  one  personal  touch  the 
"dear  Ciarli?  with  which  it  opens.  This 
would  mean  a  great  deal,  I  fancy,  to  all 
who  are  left  of  a  certain  group  of  Boston 
scholars. 

These  were  the  pleasures  Boston  provided, 
— great  pleasures,  intense  pleasures.  But  over 
them,  as  over  everything  in  those  days,  hung 
the  war  cloud.  The  battlefield  was  far  away, 
but  men  marched  from  Boston,  and  the  news 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    253 

sent  back  blackened  many  a  doorbell  in 
Boston  streets.  There  were  quiet  social  gath 
erings —  small  friendly  or  literary  dinners 
and  informal  receptions ;  but  no  dances,  no 
"grand  dinners  or  grand  parties."  At  the 
sewing-circle,  women  worked,  not  to  get  into 
society,'  but  for  the  soldiers.  "  It  was  hardly 
decent,"  so  the  "  Memoirs "  record,  "  for  a 
man  to  dress  up  and  appear  as  a  swell  any 
where  at  all."  In  the  "  Continental  "  office, 
as  the  "  Memoirs  "  also  record,  things  were 
active,  and  there  was  real  righting,  if  of  a  kind 
against  which  the  grandson  of  Oliver  Leland 
sometimes  chafed.  He  wanted  to  be  "  down 
there,"  fighting  as  the  men  of  the  family  had 
fought  at  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill.  But 
at  that  early  stage  of  the  Civil  War  it  had 
not  entered  into  the  mind  of  any  one  to 
conceive  the  number  of  men  under  arms  who 
would  be  needed  before  the  end.  The  family 
in  Philadelphia  had  already  contributed  one 
Leland  in  the  person  of  his  brother  Henry ; 
from  his  wife's  family,  too,  had  gone  a  brother, 
Rodney  Fisher,  who  was  never  to  return,  and 
there  was  an  urgent  call  for  just  the  sort  of 
attack  and  defence  that  the  "  Continental  " 
was  leading. 


254  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

This  work  the  "Continental"  did  well. 
But  Gilmore  eventually  shared  the  ownership 
with  Robert  J.  Walker,  and  the  conditions 
were  no  longer  the  same.  Financially,  the 
returns  were  not  satisfactory,  the  circulation 
of  the  magazine  slowly  went  down  until  its 
end  was  inevitable,  and  by  the  autumn  of 
1862,  the  Rye,  who  had  never  received  a  cent 
from  it,  was  back  in  Philadelphia. 

Here  his  work  did  not  cease,  though  now 
he  was  a  free  lance.  He  wrote  a  pamphlet  on 
"Centralisation  versus  State  Rights"  (1863), 
a  plea  for  the  still  greater  power  to  be  given 
to  the  central  government.  He  wrote,  with  his 
brother,  "  The  Book  of  Copperheads,"  and 
illustrated  it,  and  was  always  pleased  to  know 
that  it  had  been  found,  well  thumbed  and 
used,  on  the  table  by  President  Lincoln's 
bed  after  the  assassination.  The  amount  of 
purely  literary  work  he  accomplished  also  was 
extraordinary,  but  of  this  I  shall  wait  to 
speak  in  another  chapter. 

I  have  passed  somewhat  lightly  over  the 
journalistic  work  of  these  years,  for  many 
other  men  have  been  good  journalists,  while 
there  are  some  things  which  he  alone  has 
done,  which  he  alone  could  do,  and  I  prefer 


YEARS   OF  STORM   AND   STRESS    255 

to  devote  more  space  to  his  original  work. 
But  during  the  war  days,  no  one  rendered 
stronger  newspaper  support  than  he  to  the 
cause  of  the  North.  To  the  bold  course  of  the 
"  Continental,"  many  attributed  the  hasten 
ing  by  several  months  of  the  emancipation, 
and  it  was  entirely  "  for  literary  service  ren 
dered  to  the  country  during  the  War  "  that 
he  was  given  the  degree  of  A.  M.  by  Harvard. 
Business  fills  almost  entirely  what  little 
correspondence  of  these  seven  full  years  of 
work  remains  to  be  consulted.  George  Rip- 
ley  writes  about  the  "  Cyclopaedia,"  Gilmore 
about  the  "  Continental,"  Saxe  and  Stoddard 
about  poems  they  have  consented,  after  much 
persuasion,  to  contribute  to  "  Vanity  Fair," 
various  publishers  about  various  books  either 
in  preparation  or  in  the  press.  There  is  not 
much  else,  except  here  and  there  an  amusing 
reference  to  the  literary  events  and  the  lit 
erary  excitements  of  the  day.  This  day  seems 
very  far  away  as  I  read  an  unknown  corre 
spondent,  who  fills  pages  with  praise  of  Fitz- 
Hugh  Ludlow,  "  formerly  a  very  peculiar 
young  pedagogue  at  Watertown  and  Pough- 
keepsie,"  and  now  author  of  "  The  Hasheesh- 
Eater,"  a  book  forgotten,  but  of  great  vogue 


256  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

within  my  memory;  or,  as  I  chance  upon 
Griswold,  in  an  expansive  humour,  pronoun 
cing  Alice  Gary's  new  book  of  poems  (1855) 
to  be  "  incomparably  the  best  volume  of  verse 
any  woman  has  ever  published,  here  or  any 
where.  Taylor  and  Stoddard  do  not  think 
so ;  Halleck  and  Herbert  do."  After  this,  I 
can  take  more  interest  than  ever  in  a  letter, 
in  delicate,  ladylike  writing,  of  course  un 
dated,  beginning  "  My  most  missed,  mourned 
and  married  Friend,"  signed  "  Phoebe  Gary," 
and  reporting  that  "  our  firm  friend  Dr.  Gris 
wold  is  very  low  now  indeed ;  I  do  not  think 
it  possible  he  will  live  but  a  few  days."  How 
the  literary  lights  of  the  fifties  have  flickered 
and  burnt  out  altogether!  Another  letter 
from  a  very  different  correspondent  is  to  be 
quoted  as  it  is,  for  reasons  that  it  will  explain 
better  than  I  could. 


GEORGE  H.  BOKER  TO  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

B AXEMAN'S  POINT,  July  28,  1855. 

MY  DEAR  CHARLEY,  —  I  deferred  writing 
to  you  until  after  a  dinner  to  which  Long 
fellow  invited  me ;  so  that  I  might  be  able  to 
give  you  his  opinion  of  Heine.  That  event 


YEARS   OF  STORM  AND   STRESS    257 

has  passed.  Longfellow  spoke  in  the  highest 
terms  of  your  translation,  both  of  the  poetry 
and  the  prose,  saying  that  it  was  a  work  which, 
in  his  opinion,  would  do  you  great  honour. 
He  further  said  that  when  he  had  completed 
his  examination,  with  the  care  that  it  de 
served,  he  would  write  you  his  views  in  full. 
[If  he  did,  the  letter  has  gone.]  I  was  fully 
impressed  with  the  idea  that  Longfellow 
regards  your  translation  with  the  greatest 
respect.  If  I  could  have  opinions  made  to 
order  for  works  of  mine,  I  should  choose  just 
such  as  Longfellow  expressed  of  your  Heine. 
As  you  well  know,  my  own  faith  in  the  suc 
cess  of  the  translation  did  not  need  the  sup 
port  of  another's  opinion. 

I  am  a  thousand  times  obliged  to  you  and 
to  Weik  for  your  efforts  with  Triibner.  As 
yet  I  have  heard  nothing  from  Parry  &  Mc 
Millan  concerning  their  arrangement  with 
Trubner,  but  I  feel  no  anxiety  on  this  ac 
count,  as  there  is  no  immediate  necessity  for 
their  communicating  it  to  me. 

I  receive  the  "  Bulletin  "  regularly.  So  far 
I  see  no  falling  off  in  the  paper  from  that 
style  which  I  commended  at  the  outset  of 
your  editorial  duties.  There  is  one  thing, 


258   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

however,  for  which  you  should  blow  up  the 
"foreman/'  —  the  paper  abounds  in  typo 
graphical  errors ;  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  that 
there  seems  to  me  to  be  a  daily  increase  in  the 
quantity  of  cases.  I  think  that  it  would  be 
well  for  you  to  look  after  this  with  a  severe  eye. 

My  eyes  are  still  in  a  bad  way.  I  have  no 
hope  of  redeeming  my  half  promise  to  cor 
respond  with  the  paper  during  my  absence. 
Even  the  notes  which  duty  compels  me  to 
write,  try  me  more  than  is  well  for  me.  With 
the  exception  of  Heine,  I  have  not  opened 
a  book  since  my  arrival  here,  and  my  whole 
time  has  been  past  in  the  apostolic  pursuit  of 
fishing.  At  the  "  gentle  art "  I  have  become 
an  adept,  much  to  the  wonder  of  the  literati, 
who  are  amazed  at  my  waste  of  time  and  en 
ergy,  and  also  at  the  blackness  of  my  hands. 

I  shall  get  back  to  Philadelphia  as  soon  as 
possible,  for  I  am  tired  of  the  desolation  of 
this  place  and  long  to  resume  our  Sundays. 
When  a  man  is  separated  from  his  usual  pur 
suits,  he  looks  back  upon  them  as  the  only 
goods  of  his  life.  It  is  so  with  me,  at  least  — 
the  common  has  risen  into  the  sublime. 
Thine  ever, 

GEO.  H.  BOKER. 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    259 

The  "  efforts  with  Triibner,"  alluded  to  by 
Boker,  were  fruitful  enough  in  notices  and 
announcements  to  please  him,  and  they  were 
not  the  only  efforts.  The  Rye  had  been  in 
correspondence  since  1855  with  Nicholas 
Triibner,  who  was  to  become  his  intimate 
friend,  the  translation  of  Heine  having  been 
the  beginning  of  it.  All  of  Triibner's  letters 
of  this  period  have  something  in  them  about 
Boker.  So  also  have  the  Rye's.  In  one  of 
his  I  find  also  a  reference  to  himself  that 
should  be  preserved  as  additional  proof  of 
the  way  his  own  reputation  was  spreading. 
"  I  am  really  at  a  loss  for  words  to  express 
my  sense  of  your  great  kindness  and  many 
courtesies  to  me,"  he  writes  on  March  26, 
1859.  "Before  I  have  recovered  from  the 
feeling  of  obligation  for  the  one,  I  am  over 
whelmed  by  another.  The  last  comes  in  the 
form  of  that  very  handsome  slice  of  European 
reputation  conferred  upon  me  in  your  '  Guide 
to  American  Literature.'  I  was  never  so 
much  gratified  before  by  any  event  in  my 
literary  career  —  and  no  wonder.  Such  a 
mention  in  such  a  book  is  indeed  an  Eu 
ropean  reputation  of  itself,  and  a  handsome 
one.  .  .  .  Excuse  me  if  I  recur  to  my  friend 


2<5o  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Boker's  poem.  If  you  could  get  it  into  the 
1  Athenaeum '  — faute  de  mieux  —  we  would 
all  be  grateful." 

The  few  other  letters  in  this  bundle  are  to 
his  wife,  written  on  the  rare  occasions  when 
they  were  separated.  It  is  clear  that  he 
usually  wrote  in  a  hurry,  as  he  did  everything 
else  at  the  time.  But  the  letters  are  charm 
ing  in  their  tenderness,  and  they  are  not  too 
hurried  to  have  for  us  now  a  value  as  clues, 
if  slight,  to  the  literary  life  of  that  remote 
period. 


CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  MRS.  CHARLES  GODFREY 
LELAND 

NEW  YORK,  April  14,  1860. 

.  .  .  I  wish  I  could  see  you  to-day  and  have 
a  real  good  talk,  for  it  really  seems  as  if  it 
were  quite  time  to  just  tell  you  everything 
about  all  the  New  York  folks  and  have  you 
going  about.  Last  night  I  got  a  carriage  and 
went  to  Dana's  and  found  that  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
D.  were  not  going  to  the  Opera,  so  I  took 
Betty,  who  declaimed  against  the  extrava 
gance  of  driving.  We  had  the  choice  of  the 
two  opera  companies,  and  chose  the  Acad- 


YEARS  OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    261 

emy  with  Patti  and  Brignoli.  Patti  has  im 
proved  wonderfully.  When  we  came  out,  we 
saw  the  Aurora.  Betty  Bowie  told  me  in 
great  glee  that  Mrs.  H.  had  told  her  that  I 
was  left  in  her  charge,  whereupon  Miss  Betty 
told  her  that  they  had  had  me  for  two  even 
ings  and  were  going  to  have  me  again  last 
night.  I  am  going  to  Colgate's  to-night.  My 
conscience  quite  reproaches  me  for  being  so 
jolly  while  you  are  away,  but  then  I  suffered 
dreadfulivr  three  days  with  neuralgia.  .  .  . 
Generally  speaking,  this  is  all  the  news.  I 
do  so  hope  that  you  are  having  a  nice  time 
at  home  and  that  all  are  well.  I  am  going  to 
write  a  little  biography  of  N.  P.  Willis  for 
our  paper,  to  go  with  a  portrait.  Everybody 
enquires  after  you,  especially  Betty  Bowie 
and  Mrs.  (Bayard)  Taylor.  .  .  . 


NEW  YORK,  April  17, 1860. 

...  I  got  your  dear  letter  yesterday,  and 
should  have  gone  to  see  Mrs.  Dunlap  last 
night,  but  caught  cold  in  head  and  throat.  I 
feel  better  to-day,  but  am  still  annoyed  with 
it.  How  I  long  for  warm  weather,  and  I  am 
wild  to  get  out  of  doors.  A  letter  in  the  "  Bos- 


262  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

ton  Transcript,"  describing  the  N  Gallery 
opening  the  other  evening,  says  that  "  scat 
tered  among  the  company  were  Bryant,  Wil 
lis,  Bayard  Taylor,  Bancroft,  Boker,  Leland, 
and  Stoddard."  You  see  that  I  'm  one  above 
tail  in  that  class  —  though  I  don't  deserve 
it.  Give  my  love  to  everybody.  .  .  . 


NEW  YORK,  April  12,  1862. 

...  I  am  really  ashamed  of  not  writing 
sooner,  but  could  n't  help  it.  Sunday,  Mon 
day  and  Tuesday  I  suffered  awfully  with 
neuralgia.  Yesterday  I  was  better  and  re-ap 
peared  at  the  Cyclopaedia.  Last  night  I  went 
round  to  Mrs.  Dana's  and  was  received  with 
great  joy.  Mrs.  Dana  wanted  to  go  round  to 
the  opening  night  of  the  National  Academy 
pictures  and  had  no  beau.  She  and  Betty 
had  thought  of  sending  me  a  note  as  Betty 
proposed,  but  Mrs.  D.  was  afraid  to.  It  was 
like  a  reception,  crowded  with  fashionable 
people  and  literary,  and  you  might  have 
seen,  conversing  together  at  the  end  of  one 
room,  Bayard  Taylor,  N.  P.  Willis,  Geo. 
Boker  and  Chisel  [a  name  for  him  as  famil 
iar  to  the  family  as  Le  Chevalier  was  to  the 


YEARS   OF   STORM  AND   STRESS    263 

public]  —  and,  I  forgot,  Stoddard.  I  saw 
Mrs.  Hicks,  who  inquired,  as  everybody  did, 
anxiously  about  you.  Bryant  was  there,  Dick 
Willis,  and  heaps  of  people.  I  am  going  to 
the  opera  with  either  Betty  or  Mrs.  Dana  to 
morrow. 

I  do  miss  you,  and  only  wish  you  could 
have  been  at  the  Exhibition  last  night. 

All  are  well.  I  am  in  an  awful  hurry.  .  .  . 
Thine  ever 

very  hungry 

(and  bound  to  Delmonico's) 

CHARLEY. 

NEW  YORK,  Monday  Afternoon,  Jan.  13,  1863. 

...  I  may  stay  a  little  longer  since  Mary 
seems  desirous  of  having  me.  I  have  a  great 
mind  to  apply  for  a  Custom  House  place 
myself,  and  certainly  have  strong  influence 
to  aid  me.  I  hear  that  Dana  is  Assistant 
Secretary  of  War!  and  Stanton's  close 
friend  —  strange  the  family  told  me  nothing 
of  it.  He  is  the  right  man  in  the  right  place. 
I  must  see  Simon  [Stevens]  to  find  out  what 
Custom  House  offices  are  within  my  narrow 
capacity.  I  'm  not  sure  that  I  should  decline 
being  tide-waiter.  I  want  work  so  badly. 


264  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Diew  sail  that  office-begging  is  my  last  re 
sort,  and  that  I  have  tried  hard  enough  tor 
get  something  else  to  do.  I  certainly  deserve 
as  much  as  Clark,  Stoddard,  Ludlow,  or  any 
other  of  the  literati  there  —  and  Lincoln 
knows  it. 

In  haste,  and  very  anxious  to  see  you, 

CHARLEY. 

Please  tell  Henry  I  got  him  half  a  dozen 
cutty  (English)  pipes,  just  the  thing,  the 
nicest  ones  I  ever  saw,  meerschaum  washed, 
at  six  cents  apiece.  There  is  a  new  kind  "  all 
the  fashion  "  here. 


CHAPTER  VII 

YEARS   OF   STORM  AND  STRESS  (CONTINUED) 

IT  was  now  when  the  Rye  was  at  home  again, 
that  news  came  of  General  Lee's  march 
into  Pennsylvania.  Philadelphia  was  threat 
ened;  it  looked  as  if  the  Confederates  were 
to  have  it  their  own  way ;  every  man  fit  for 
fighting  was  needed  at  the  front.  This  was 
the  moment  of  the  Emergency. 

An  artillery  company,  known  as  Chapman 
Biddle's,  though  commanded  by  Mr.  Landis, 
was  formed  in  Philadelphia.  Both  the  Le- 
lands,  Henry  having  just  recovered  from  the 
second  illness  brought  on  in  active  service, 
joined  as  privates,  and  with  them  went  many 
men  with  names  well  known  in  Philadelphia, 
—  Theodore  Fassitt,  Edward  Penington, 
James  Biddle,  Stewart  Patterson,  and  one,  the 
youngest  of  the  regiment,  known  since  as 
editor  of  "  The  Century  Magazine,"  Richard 
Watson  Gilder.  They  went  through  many  a 
serious  skirmish,  they  suffered  every  misery, 
and  hardship,  and  strain.  They  marched  and 


266  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

countermarched,  they  starved  and  foraged, 
they  worked  like  navvies.  They  were  at  Get 
tysburg,  but,  being  raw  recruits,  were  kept  as 
reserves.  And  there  was  one  of  the  number 
to  whom,  through  this  campaign  as  through 
life,  the  picturesque,  the  strange,  the  odd,  was 
the  most  engrossing  part  of  it  all.  Hard 
work  and  genuine  suffering  could  not  make 
him  indifferent  to  the  Gypsy,  the  mysterious 
side  of  the  adventure.  The  incidents  upon 
which  he  lingers  in  the  "  Memoirs "  are 
those  with  a  touch  of  the  extraordinary  be 
yond  even  what  there  was  of  extraordinary 
for  the  civilian  in  soldiering,  —  the  perform 
ance  of  the  young  lieutenant  of  his  regiment 
who,  blown  into  the  air  by  the  explosion  of 
a  caisson  and  coming  down  whole  by  some 
miracle,  at  once  asked  his  commander,  "  The 
caisson  's  blown  to  hell ;  what  am  I  to  do 
now?  "  the  looting,  and  swearing,  and  drink 
ing  of  the  "  bummer  "  who  stood  as  model  for 
Breitmann  ;  the  sword  blade  he  saw  fly  thirty 
feet  in  the  air,  when  one  of  the  men  in  his 
battery  had  four  fingers  cut  off ;  the  camp- 
fires  studding  "  the  vast  landscapes  like  count 
less  reflections  of  the  lights  above,"  on  the 
night  before  Gettysburg;  the  sudden  meet- 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    267 

ing  with  friends  of  his  brother,  in  a  lonely 
farmhouse  in  the  forest,  summoned  there,  as 
if  by  magic,  to  provide  him  with  a  meal  on 
one  desperately  hungry  day,  —  his  brother, 
the  Rye  adds,  "  never  sought  for  mysteries, 
and  he  despised  dramatic  effects,  but  his  life 
was  full  of  them."  The  extraordinary  passed 
into  tragedy  that  dreadful  moment  when,  the 
two  on  duty,  side  by  side,  Henry  received 
the  wound  from  the  effects  of  which  he  was 
to  die  in  a  very  few  years.  For  the  Rye  the 
u  picnic  "  of  the  Emergency  thenceforward 
had  its  horrors,  the  strange  vagaries  of  his 
brother  tormenting  him  by  day  and  night 
until  the  mystery,  the  drama  of  war  lost  for 
him  its  charm. 

A  fragmentary,  but  eloquent,  story  of  the 
war  days  is  told  in  about  a  dozen  letters  of  a 
more  personal  nature  than  the  great  bulk  of 
the  correspondence  of  the  sixties.  I  can  only 
wish  the  exceptions  were  more  numerous. 
First  come  the  letters  written  by  Henry 
Leland,  while  the  Rye  was  still  in  Boston, 
giving  an  account  of  his  progress  as  soldier 
and,  incidentally,  chronicling  many  little  in 
cidents  that  seemed  trifling  at  the  time,  but 
that  few  Philadelphians  now  can  recall  un- 


268  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

moved.  The  earliest  is  dated  June  16,  1861. 
Henry  had  been  fishing  through  the  last  days 
in  New  Jersey,  but,  he  wrote,  "  the  *  solger ' 
has  duties,  and  I  have  hurried  back  to  drill 
and  parade.  A  caricature  of  the  Home  Guard 
Regimental  Hat  that  I  made  met  with  an 
embarrassment  of  success,  and  now  hangs  up 
framed  (size  12x8  inches)  in  the  armoury. 
Yesterday,  the  Cappen  desired  me  to  oblige 
the  company  by  a  design  for  a  flag,  so  my 
petits  talents  are  on  hand.  I  made  another 
caricature  of  the  H.  Guard  Hat  for  '  Vanity 
Fair '  as  long  ago  as  you  were  editor,  and  it 
was  published  in  June  8th  number.  Every 
copy  of  that  edition  sold  in  Philadelphia. 
The  Home  Guards  were  in  ecstasies  about 
it.  ...  I  begin  dancing  like  a  skinned  injun 
in  the  squad  drills  to-morrow,  having  to  make 
up  for  lost  time.  We  have  our  muskets  and 
have  taken  some  horrible  oath  about  'em,  as 
we  probably  shall  at  them  when  we  go  out 
target-shooting  and  have  them  hang  fire ;  yes, 
for  they  are  1825  guns  altered  from  flint 
locks."  Three  weeks  later:  "I  have  been 
Target-Shooting,  Drilling,  and  through  a 
Six  Hours'  Parade  on  the  4th  of  July.  And 
am  fast  working  myself  into  a  first-rate  sol- 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    269 

dier,  being  popular  with  the  Co.  because  I 
write  flattering  notices  of  the  Co.  in  the  *  Bul 
letin  ; '  and  may  write  more."  Ten  days  later, 
"  Our  gallzant  Captain  Charles  M.  Prevost, 
who  is  really  a  gentleman  at  heart  and  in 
action,  called  me  aside  from  squad  drill  and 
said  that,  as  our  company  had  been  ordered 
out  for  field  duty  with  the  Regiment  next 
Tuesday,  and  believing  that  I  would  like  to 
experience  camp  life  aufond,  he  had  detailed 
me  and  one  other  private  to  repair  to  our 
camp  ground,  six  miles  out  of  the  city,  the 
night  before  (that  is  Monday),  when  we  would 
stand  duty,  sleep  in  tent,  and  so  on  ;  and  be 
ready  in  the  morning  to  join  in  the  regi 
mental  evolution,  etc.  So  you  see  I  am  in  for 
it  and  shall  see  something  practical  in  the 
bold  'solger's'  life."  Another  day,  and  "I 
have  just  received  Simon  Stevens'  very  kind 
offer  of  his  services  to  obtain  for  me  a  situa 
tion  on  General  Fremont's  staff  "  —  an  offer 
declined  at  once  because  Henry  Leland  knew 
himself  totally  unfitted  for  the  post.  "  When 
I  have  been  under  fire  once,  I  may  deserve 
such  encouragement ;  not  until  then ! "  The 
chance  did  not  come  as  promptly  as  he  would 
have  liked.  "  While  absent  from  the  city  "  — 


270  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

September  i  is  the  date  of  his  writing — "  our 
company  of  the  Grey  Reserves,  to  the  tune 
of  about  50,  volunteered  for  3  months  for  the 
war,  but  were  refused.  The  Lieutenant  put 
me  down  as  one  of  the  50,  swearing  that  Pri 
vate  Leland,  he  knew,  wanted  to  fight  some 
body  !  (There 's  a  amiable  character  for  you.) 
I  am  now  trying  to  get  enough  men  out  of  the 
company  to  go  in  for  the  3  years'  business,  and 
hope  to  succeed."  The  more  cheerful  side  to 
all  this  was  "in  the  tribute  Philadelphia  paid' 
to  its  defenders.  "  On  Saturday  afternoon,  at 
3  P.  M.,  we  have  a  company  drill  at  Mr.  Lam 
bert's  place  near  Girard  College,  by  special 
invitation,  and  we  will  have  a  jolly  good  time 
there,  as  he  gives  us  punch,  etc.  etc.  So  you 
see  fortune  favours  the  brave  militia  man  — 
and  the  Company  Scribe  is  doing  well" 
And  again,  "  Our  Company  went  to  Atlantic 
last  Friday  by  invitation  of  Jno.  Broadhead  — 
we  presented  arms  to  Mrs.  Broadhead,  then  a 
bouquet,  then  an  air  from  the  band,  and  so 
squared  the  account." 

The  letters  are  interrupted  here  because, 
by  the  6th  of  September,  the  Rye,  in  Phila 
delphia  for  a  short  visit,  was  in  his  turn  taking 
up  the  story,  and  sending  news  to  his  wife, 


YEARS   OF    STORM   AND   STRESS    271 

not  solely  of  Henry  Leland  as  soldier,  but 
of  Rodney  Fisher,  her  only  brother,  who  was 
killed  not  very  long  afterwards.  The  letter 
is  gay  —  too  tenderly  gay  in  places  to  be 
printed  at  length.  There  was  so  much  at 
stake  for  both  of  them  that  "  soldiering  "  had 
to  be  faced  with  all  the  gaiety  at  his  com 
mand. 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  MRS.  CHARLES  GODFREY 
LELAND 

.  .  .  Yesterday  afternoon,  went  first  to  the 
Concert  Hall  Armoury  and  then  over  the  Vine 
St.  ferry  to  the  parade  ground,  and  saw  the 
whole  regiment  drill.  On  the  way  I  met  Mr. 
Bell,  I  suppose  he  was  coming  from  Atlan 
tic,  and  had  a  talk  with  him.  Henry  is  a  fine- 
looking  soldier.  I  thought,  of  course,  the  most 
soldierly-looking  in  his  company.  They  fired 
very  well  indeed.  While  I  was  standing  on 
the  edge,  there  came  by  a  guard,  a  fierce 
zoovy  man  in  fatigue  uniform,  and  lobyhold! 
it  was  brother  Rodney.  I  had  a  long  talk 
with  him.  He  looks  like  a  regular  recruit 
and  has  got  it  in  him.  Bimeby  it  began  to 
rain,  and  I  put  up  my  umbrella,  and  Rodney 
and  two  other  guards  got  under  it.  One  of 


272  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

them  wounded  me  dreadful  with  his  gun,  and 
made  a  triangular  hole  in  my  umbrella  with 
his  bayonet.  Two  of  the  guards  had  little 
bottles  with  brandy  in  them  and  I  had  sum- 
sen  to  drink.  Emily  is  well,  and  the  baby.  .  .  . 
Yesterday,  too,  I  went  to  see  George  Boker. 
He  has  got  little  Georgey  an  appointment 
to  enter  West  Point.  George  was  at  Wash 
ington  during  the  Bull  Run  defeat.  Julia 
is  staying  with  Mrs.  Butler  in  Germantown. 
They  are  going  soon  to  pass  a  fortnight  at 
Colgate's  on  the  North  River.  I  don't  think 
I  shall  return  before  Monday.  It  is  very  nice 
and  quiet  here,  and  Father  is  very  glad  to 
have  me  at  home.  To-day  John  and  Henry 
have  gone  gunning.  I  never  knew  even  Phila 
delphia  to  be  so  quiet  as  it  is  now,  —  up  town 
you  hardly  see  a  soul.  .  .  . 

After  this  there  is  nothing  until  June,  1863, 
when  the  Rye  had  also  become  soldier,  and 
the  letter  then  is  from  his  publisher,  Carleton. 
"  It  appears  you  are  off  taking  care  of  your 
country,"  Carleton  writes,  but,  all  the  same, 
pursues  him  with  proof  sheets.  Another  docu 
ment  of  the  time  is  a  letter  from  Peacock  of 
the  "  Bulletin  "  to  a  Mr.  Worrell  of  Harris- 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND  STRESS    273 

burg  to  introduce  "  My  friend  Mr.  Charles 
G.  Leland,  whom  you  know  by  reputation, 
and  who  goes  to  Harrisburg  as  a  volunteer." 
How  many  letters  the  Rye  wrote  from  camp 
I  cannot  say,  but  only  one,  scribbled  roughly 
in  pencil,  is  at  my  service. 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  MRS.  CHARLES  GODFREY 
LELAND 

(No  date.) 

.  .  .  We  are  right  in  the  thickest  of  the 
toughening  process,  and  old  hands  say  very 
thoroughly.  Thursday  night  I  mounted  guard 
all  night,  three  times  2  hours  each,  in  a  heavy 
rain,  slept  in  a  shelter  tent  (ask  Henry)  and 
was  packed  with  5  men  in  another  small  tent. 
For  2  days  we  have  been  soaked  to  the  skin, 
but  somehow  I  have  no  cold.  Yesterday  after 
noon  I  worked  hard  pitching  and  striking 
tents,  and  last  night,  from  8  to  n,  in  the 
entrenchments  with  pick  and  shovel  —  very 
hard  work  indeed.  They  give  me  lots  of 
crackers,  strong  coffee  and  good  ham.  This 
morning  we  had  butter,  beefsteaks  (I  had  a 
tenderloin)  and  soft  bread. 

The  trenches  are  a  shame  to  the  State. 
With  yonder  town  full  of  great  loafing  farm- 


274  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

ers,  boys  like  little  delicate  Fassitt  and  Biddle 
have  to  dig  for  hours  with  pickaxes.  How 
ever,  we  are  not  required  to  work  hard  —  or, 
in  fact,  the  officers  make  it  very  easy.  I  am 
in  tent  with  Hazeltine,  Lamb  (a  Boston  boy), 
Walton  and  Letchworth,  all  nice  men.  The 
life  is  the  very  severest  kind  —  no  washing 
except  from  canteens  —  no  change  of  clothes, 
but  very  exciting.  I  have  a  thousand  things 
to  tell  you  of  the  camp  here  —  everything  is 
brought  down  to  first  principles. 

It  is  very  hard  to  write  —  and  to  find  time. 
To-day  we  drill  cannons.  .  .  .  My  muscle 
seems  to  be  coming  out  very  well,  and  I  bid 
fair  to  become  one  of  the  heavy  lifters.  I  wish 
Father  would  send  me  a  very  large  black  india 
rubber  blanket.  Mine  is  too  small  for  guard 
duty  in  the  rain.  Wait  a  day  or  two  and  I 
will  tell  you  where  to  send  it.  ... 

With  the  retreat  of  Lee  across  the  Poto 
mac,  the  Emergency  was  ended.  Officers  and 
privates  returned  to  their  homes.  "  At  last 
we  were  marched  and  railroaded  back  to 
Philadelphia.  I  need  not  say  that  we  were 
welcome,  or  that  I  enjoyed  baths,  clean  clothes, 
and  the  blest  sensation  of  feeling  decent  once 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    275 

more.  Everything  in  life  seemed  to  be  luxu 
rious  as  it  had  never  been  before.  .  .  .  For 
years  after,  I  had  but  to  think  of  the  Emer 
gency  to  realise  that  I  was  actually  in  all  the 
chief  conditions  of  happiness."  There  was  a 
short  rest ;  just  time  to  pull  himself  together 
physically,  just  time  to  do  what  he  could  for 
his  country  in  more  peaceful  fashion  at  the 
Sanitary  Fair,  for  which  he  helped  to  pro 
duce  the  paper  which  was  called  "  Our  Daily 
Fare." 

Some  of  the  correspondence  in  connection 
with  it  has  drifted  down  through  the  years 
into  my  hands.  It  is  rich  in  the  names  of  men 
and  women  prominent  in  Philadelphia,  — 
names  as  familiar  as  George  W.  Childs,  Mrs. 
Gillespie,  writing  in  despair  over  some  mis 
adventure  in  the  post-office  of  which  she 
had  charge;  Horace  Howard  Furness,  secre 
tary  of  the  executive  committee ;  Mrs.  Lucy 
H.  Hooper,  one  of  the  first  Philadelphia 
women  to  make  a  name  as  journalist ;  Miss 
Anna  M.  Lea,  now  Mrs.  Merritt.  The  mere 
list  of  their  names  is  crowded  with  memories 
Philadelphians  would  not  want  to  lose.  There 
are  as  many  letters  from  sympathisers  in  other 
towns:  Buchanan  Read,  a  personage  in  his 


276  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

day,  who  writes  to  say  he  cannot  get  at  his 
pictures,  but  offers  the  gift  of  verses  in  their 
place ;  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps,  not  yet  Mrs. 
Ward,  who  sends  a  story  and  is  honoured 
by  the  request  for  it ;  Messrs.  Roberts  Broth 
ers,  who  announce  Miss  Ingelow's  donation 
of  twenty-five  of  her  poems ;  Mrs.  M.  E.  W. 
Sherwood,  just  emerging  from  the  rush  and 
worry  of  the  Metropolitan  Fair  in  New  York, 
who  fears  that  it  will  be  surpassed  in  Phila 
delphia,  but  who  has  the  generosity  to  present 
Garibaldi's  dagger,  his  personal  contribution, 
which  eventually,  I  think  it  worth  noting,  be 
came,  by  well-paid-for  votes,  the  property  of 
General  Grant.  Most  important  of  my  relics 
of  the  Sanitary  Fair,  however  rare  or  charged 
with  sentiment  they  all  may  be,  is  one  of 
the  fifty  duplicate  copies  of  the  Proclama 
tion  of  Emancipation,  which,  at  the  request 
of  George  Boker,  Lincoln  and  Seward  both 
signed.  "  I  perfectly  knew  and  understood  at 
the  time,"  the  Rye  says  in  his  "  Memoirs,"  "  as 
did  all  concerned,  that  this  was  a  recognition 
—  and  a  very  graceful  and  appropriate  one  — 
of  what  I  had  done  for  Emancipation.  .  .  . 
The  copies  I  presented  to  the  Sanitary  Fair 
to  be  sold  for  its  benefit,  but  there  was  not 


YEARS   OF   STORM  AND   STRESS    277 

much  demand  for  them ;  what  were  left  over 
I  divided  with  George  Boker." 

The  Sanitary  Fair  was  scarcely  at  an  end 
when  the  Rye  was  off  to  Tennessee,  pro 
specting  for  oil.  The  oil  fever  was  then  at  its 
height.  Two  friends  of  his,  Colton  by  name, 
officers  in  the  Federal  army,  while  campaign 
ing  in  Tennessee,  had  come  upon  signs  of  oil 
in  the  road  not  far  from  Murfreesboro  and 
told  him  of  it.  The  matter  was  taken  up  by 
capitalists  in  Philadelphia,  money  was  sup 
plied,  and  to  the  Rye  was  entrusted  the  jour 
ney  of  investigation. 

In  his  whole  career,  there  was  no  more 
adventurous  episode  —  that  is,  in  the  usual 
sense  of  adventure.  Much  as  he  loved  the 
people  of  the  road,  to  play  the  tramp  would 
have  been  no  less  abhorrent  to  him  than  to 
pose  as  "  Bohemian  "  in  New  York.  Later, 
when  he  went  gypsying,  it  was  from  his 
own  comfortable  quarters.  He  never  lived 
with  the  Indians,  as  Gushing  did.  He  might 
walk  a  mile  to  meet  a  tinker,  but  nothing 
would  have  induced  him  to  set  up  a  tin 
ker's  forge,  like  Borrow.  Definite  business 
was  the  reason  of  his  going  to  Tennessee, 
not  a  fancy  for  vagabondising.  But  the  life 


278  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

was  rougher  and  freer  than  any  he  had  ever 
known  or  was  to  know.  The  country  through 
which  he  had  to  travel  was  wild,  the  people 
were  unruly,  the  vendetta  was  an  institution, 
brigandage  a  profession,  and,  to  make  matters 
worse,  the  State  was  now  overrun  with  Fed 
eral  soldiers  and  Southern  guerillas.  Of  all 
these  facts  he  was  perfectly  aware.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  "  after  so  many  years  of  work 
I  was  as  poor  as  ever,  and  the  seven  years  of 
harvest  which  I  had  prophesied  had  come, 
and  I  was  not  gathering  a  single  golden 
grain.  My  father  regarded  me  as  a  failure  in 
life,  or  as  a  literary  ne'er-do-weel,  destined 
never  to  achieve  fortune  or  gain  an  etat,  and 
he  was  quite  right.  My  war  experience  had 
made  me  reckless  of  life,  and  speculation  was 
firing  every  heart." 

And  so,  buying  a  pair  of  long,  strong, 
over-all  boots  and  blanket,  borrowing  a  re 
volver,  providing  himself  with  military  passes 
and  introductions  from  his  friends  C.  A. 
Dana,  then  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  and 
Colonel  Henry  Olcott,  upon  whom  theo- 
sophic  fame  had  not  dawned,  the  Rye  packed 
his  carpet-bag,  started  for  Venango  County, 
Pennsylvania,  "where,  until  the  past  few 


c 


*'   I 

V     el 

1  *f  • 


*  V    •  x 

v,  .Vv-V 


YEARS  OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    279 

months,  there  had  been  many  more  bears 
and  deer  than  human  beings,"  and,  hiring  a 
sleigh,  began  his  adventures  with,  "  in  some 
respects,  the  most  remarkable  day  "  he  ever 
spent  anywhere. 

Remarkable  indeed  it  was,  and  so  also 
were  the  many  days  that  followed.  His  route 
led  through  a  marvellous  land  of  fountains 
flowing  at  the  rate  of  a  dollar  a  second,  or 
tanks  "  running  three  thousand  dollars  a  day 
in  clear  greenbacks,"  of  great  derricks  and 
scaffoldings,  black  and  forbidding  against  the 
sky,  of  men  making  fortunes  in  an  hour  and 
gambling  in  millions ;  but  a  land,  too,  of  bleak 
wretchedness  and  poverty  and  miserable 
shanties,  of  great  loneliness,  of  dismal  dark 
pine  forests  covered  with  snow.  Millionaires 
were  everywhere,  and  the  life  was  that  of  the 
backwoods.  He  travelled  in  primitive  sleighs, 
he  slept  in  chance  beds,  with  chance  acquaint 
ances,  under  chance  covering.  Nor  when,  at 
Oil  City,  he  exchanged  sleighs  for  the  train, 
was  comfort  much  greater.  From  Cincin 
nati  to  Nashville,  the  country  crossed  by  the 
railroad  was  half  the  time  in  the  hands 
of  guerillas,  who,  only  the  day  before,  had 
stopped  the  same  train  and  captured  the 


280  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Federal  soldiers  on  their  way  to  the  front, 
and  who  still  held  Mammoth  Cave,  past  which 
the  engineer  thought  it  at  least  a  useful 
strategy  to  put  on  full  speed.  As  to  Nash 
ville,  the  Federal  troops  had  marched  in 
not  long  before,  and  it  was  no  better  than 
a  huge  camp.  It  was  dismal  and  dirty,  and, 
at  the  hotel,  so  cold  that  water  froze  two 
inches  thick  in  the  pitchers.  These  things  the 
Rye  could  have  borne  —  he  had  come  out 
to  bear  them.  But  it  was  less  easy  to  face 
the  disappointment  of  not  finding  his  two 
friends,  the  young  officers  who  had  seen  oil 
on  the  road  near  Murfreesboro.  They  were 
to  have  met  him  there,  but  had  been  unex 
pectedly  despatched  to  Alabama.  However, 
he  fell  in  by  chance  with  another  Philadelphia 
friend,  Joseph  R.  Paxton,  now  a  "  Mustering- 
in  and  Disbursing  officer,"  captain  by  rank, 
and,  more  important  at  this  juncture,  brother- 
in-law  of  General  Whipple,  who  was  in  com 
mand  at  Nashville.  With  Paxton  the  Rye 
stayed  during  the  month  of  waiting  before 
his  expedition  could  be  organised ;  immersed 
there,  as  everywhere,  in  the  marvellous.  For 
that  he  should  be  in  Tennessee  at  this  special 
moment  in  itself  was  a  "  strange  coincidence," 


YEARS    OF   STORM  AND   STRESS    281 

he  having  "  specified  "  Tennessee  as  the  State 
of  all  others  he  would  like  to  watch  through 
its  transition  from  Confederacy  to  Union 
ism.  Again,  it  was  a  "  strange  coincidence  " 
that  he  should  be  quartered  with  Paxton  in 
a  house  where  there  was  "  a  very  good,  old- 
fashioned  library,"  and,  strangest  of  all,  that 
the  darkies  should  give  him  the  freedom  of 
a  church,  to  which  no  other  whites  were  ad 
mitted  during  certain  secret  rites,  as  if  they 
divined  in  him  "  the  mystery  "  of  the  future 
Master  of  the  Black  Stone  of  the  Voodoo. 
Upon  "  strange  coincidences "  he  could  al 
ways  thrive,  and  these  were  worth  to  him  all 
the  oil  he  did  not  find. 

For  when,  at  the  end  of  the  month,  he  went 
with  Paxton  to  Murfreesboro  and  was  at  last 
joined  by  his  two  friends,  and  given  an  escort 
of  four  or  five  men,  and  got  to  work  prospect 
ing  in  earnest,  there  was  no  oil.  The  only 
wealth  the  journey  yielded  was  adventure,  and 
evermore  adventure, — alarms  of  "bushwhack 
ers,"  dinners  in  isolated  farmhouses  with  guer 
illa  murderers  concealed  in  the  cellar,  rides 
across  dismal  cedar  barrens,  where  the  only 
living  creatures  visible  were  "  swarms  of  ill- 
omened  turkey-buzzards,"  —  adventures  wild 


282  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

and  grim  for  Breitmann  to  pass  through  in 
his  turn. 

Then  the  Rye  went  on  the  same  mission 
to  Indiana,  a  military  escort  no  longer  re 
quired,  the  journey,  now  by  stage  and  wagon, 
and  on  horseback,  across  vast  marshy  fields 
and  through  endless  mud.  Again  there  was 
no  oil;  again  there  were  marvels,  —  stories 
of  mysterious  lights  wandering  on  lonely  In 
diana  hills,  only  to  mislead  the  seeker  of  the 
treasure  buried  there  during  the  Revolution; 
a  hurried  glimpse  at  St.  Louis  of  the  tomb 
of  the  Kentucky  Giant  who  might  have  fig 
ured  in  the  beloved  book  of  "  Curiosities,"  or 
with  Barn  urn's  freaks :  ample  payment,  these 
things,  for  a  second  expedition  as  profitless, 
otherwise,  as  the  first.  From  St.  Louis  he  jour 
neyed  on  to  Cincinnati,  and  from  Cincinnati, 
now  in  company  with  Mr.  Joseph  Lea  of 
Philadelphia,  to  the  coal  country  of  West  Vir 
ginia  in  the  interest  of  some  syndicate  in 
Providence.  All  the  while,  he  says,  he  was 
"  developing  rapidly  a  wild  reckless  spirit.  .  .  . 
Literature  was  dead  in  me.  Only  once  did  I, 
in  a  railway  train,  compose  the  *  Maiden  with 
Nodings  on.'  I  bore  it  in  my  memory  for  years 
before  I  wrote  it  out,"  —  a  richer  return  that 


YEARS  OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    283 

for  his  wanderings  than  any  fountain  of  golden 
oil. 

There  was  one  rapid  flight  to  Providence, 
to  consult  the  heads  of  the  syndicate,  which 
I  mention  because,  on  the  way  back  to  West 
Virginia,  he  made  a  hurried  visit  to  Philadel 
phia  that  was  never  to  be  forgotten.  For,  be 
fore  he  was  out  of  bed  the  morning  after  his 
arrival  but  also  of  his  departure,  news  was 
brought  to  him  of  President  Lincoln's  assas 
sination.  He  saw  men  weeping  as  he  went 
through  the  streets  to  the  station ;  the  towns 
he  passed  that  day  were  draped  with  black. 

The  business  in  West  Virginia,  with  head 
quarters  in  Charleston,  was  to  renew  the 
leases  of  coal  and  oil  lands.  These  lands  were 
mostly  in  a  very  wild  country  along  the  Elk 
River.  "  West  Virginia  and  oil  experiences ! " 
an  old  friend  wrote  to  him,  after  reading  the 
"  Memoirs ;  "  "  I  bored  the  third  well  put  down 
in  the  State  for  oil.  It  was  Virginia  in  1860! 
and  civilisation  was  as  non-existent  as  electric 
lights  in  the  Crusades ! "  I  confess,  I  hardly 
recognise  the  Rye  going  and  coming,  with 
papers  to  be  signed,  with  whiskey  and  blue 
beads  for  the  clinching  of  bargains,  with  re 
ports  to  be  sent  to  the  head  office.  But  if  the 


284  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

duties  were  prosaic,  the  methods  of  perform 
ing  them  were  far  from  it.  His  business  took 
him  into  districts  where  "  a  Union  man's  life 
was  worth  about  a  chinquapin,"  but  where  he 
went  free  because  of  his  liking  "for  Indians, 
Gypsies,  and  all  such  folk,"  which  the  half- 
wild  people  felt  and  so  liked  him  in  return. 
Business  took  him  on  horseback  across  deso 
late  regions,  with  narrow  escapes  for  the  rider; 
one  narrower  than  most,  when  his  horse  fall 
ing  backward,  he  made  the  tremendous  flying 
leap  off  its  back  which  was  "  good  as  an  In 
jun,  by  God,"  his  friend  Robert  Hunt  swore. 
Business  took  him  in  his  dug-out,  far  up  the 
Elk  River,  through  storms,  over  rapids ;  and 
there  was  one  awful  night  when  death  stared 
him  in  the  face,  and  all  the  time  the  danger 
threatened,  he  lay  smoking,  singing  incanta 
tions  to  himself,  his  paddle  at  his  side,  his 
blanket  round  him,  conscious  only  of  his 
"  dull  confidence  in  fate  "  because,  in  a  mo 
ment  of  inspiration,  he  had  prophesied  to  his 
men  that  all  would  go  well.  "  When  the  old 
Injun  and  my  High  Dutch  ancestor  are  upon 
me,  I  reason  not  at  all,  and  then  I  see  visions 
and  dream  dreams,  and  it  always  comes  true 
without  the  least  self-deception  or  delusion." 


YEARS   OF   STORM  AND   STRESS    285 

It  was  a  land  of  excitement,  great  and  small. 
There  were  bears  in  the  swamps,  game  in  the 
woods,  freshets  in  the  spring  when  the  river 
rose  fifty  feet  above  its  ordinary  level.  And 
there  was  poker-playing  in  Goshorn's  hotel 
where  he  had  put  up,  and  revolver  shots  were 
everyday  occurrences,  and,  altogether,  I  am 
as  astonished  as  Hunt  professed  himself,  to 
find  how  naturally  the  Rye  took  to  it  all.  In 
but  one  place  do  I  see  the  Rye  I  knew,  and 
that  is  in  his  own  room  at  the  primitive  little 
hotel,  where  he  had  put  up  crossed  canoe 
paddles,  and  hunches  of  locust  thorn,  and 
deer's  horns  on  the  walls.  He  never  had  a 
room  anywhere,  if  only  for  a  day,  that  he  did 
not  promptly  decorate  it. 

Before  the  end  of  1865,  ^e  was  back  in 
Philadelphia.  There  was  another  year  of  dis 
couragement.  However,  he  was  too  good  a 
worker  not  to  be  wanted  somewhere,  and  in 
the  autumn  of  1866,  learning  through  George 
Boker  that  a  managing  editor  was  needed  on 
the  "  Philadelphia  Press  "  he  applied  for  the 
post  and  obtained  it.  The  proprietor,  Colonel 
John  Forney,  was  a  prominent  and  influen 
tial  politician  in  his  day,  though,  like  most 
politicians  and  newspaper  proprietors,  he  was 


286  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

forgotten  outside  of  his  own  town,  as  soon 
as  his  public  career  came  to  an  end.  Politics 
were  almost  as  exciting  as  before  the  war,  and 
for  a  managing  editor  there  was  not  much 
peace.  In  addition  to  his  political  work,  the 
Rye  was  long  dramatic  and  musical  critic,  and 
altogether  must  have  been  about  as  hard- 
worked  a  man  as  could  be  found  in  Philadel 
phia. 

"  He  was  ready  for  anything,  a  news  para 
graph,  a  sketch  of  some  foreign  celebrity,  or 
a  ponderous  leader  on  the  political  questions 
then  agitating  the  public  mind,"  is  the  ac 
count  Mr.  John  E.  Norcross,  then  also  on 
the  staff  of  the  "  Press  "  gives  of  the  Rye  as 
journalist. 

"  Those  nights  in  the  editorial  rooms  of  the 
*  Press '  are  an  enduring  memory.  Mr.  Leland 
was  of  an  imposing  physical  presence ;  he  was 
six  feet  four  inches  in  height,  but  so  well  pro 
portioned  that  his  stature  did  not  seem  so 
great  save  when  he  stood  by  a  man  of  ordinary 
size.  He  always  was  kind  in  manner  —  the 
everything  that  a  gentleman  should  be.  One 
night,  never  to  be  forgotten,  or  rather  it  was 
in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning,  after  the 
last  proof  had  been  read,  and  the  turtles  had 


YEARS  OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    287 

been  sent  down,  and  the  presses  had  begun  to 
thunder,  he  recited  for  us  the  ballad  of  *  Hans 
Breitmann's  Barty.'  It  was  new  to  every  man 
on  the  staff  but  one,  and  he,  to  the  amaze 
ment  of  Mr.  Leland,  declared  that  he  had  set 
it  up  at  the  case  several  years  before,  when  a 
student  at  the  Central  High  School,  in  Joel 
Cook's  '  Times,'  a  school  newspaper,  and  he 
proved  his  assertion  by  producing  a  copy  of 
the  *  Times,'  containing  the  ballad.  It  pleased 
Mr.  Leland  not  a  little  to  find  that  he  had  thus 
been  appreciated  by  schoolboys,  and  he  and 
the  younger  man  were  better  friends  ever 
after  that.  There  was  many  a  symposium, 
and  Mr.  Leland  read  for  the  office  force  other 
of  his  poems.  It  is  not  improper  to  say  now 
that  it  was  at  our  instance,  and  because  of 
our  insistence,  that  the  first  collected  edi 
tion  of  the  ballads  was  printed,  dedicated  to 
Carl  Benson,  the  pen  name  of  Charles  Astor 
Bristed.  That  edition  is  now  rare  and  valu 
able." 

In  1867,  both  Colonel  Forney  and  his  son 
went  to  Paris  for  the  Exhibition  of  that  year. 
The  Rye  was  left  in  general  charge  of  the 
paper,  and  work  was  harder  than  ever.  Oc 
casionally,  however,  there  were  lighter  duties. 


288  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Those  were  the  days  of  great  railroad  enter 
prise,  and  when  railroad  men  went  on  a  tour 
of  inspection,  they  did  it  in  style,  and  were 
careful  to  have  journalists  with  them  who 
would  let  the  public  know  it.  To  report  one 
of  these  tours  the  Rye  went  to  Fort  Riley  and 
Leavenworth ;  another  journalistic  journey 
was  to  Duluth  on  Lake  Superior.  The  result 
of  the  first  was  a  pamphlet,  "  Three  Thou 
sand  Miles  in  a  Railroad  Car"  (1867).  At 
Leavenworth  he  was  initiated  into  the  tribe 
of  the  Raws,  with  mad  singing  of  the  mad  ' 
song  of  the  Muscolgee  — 

Hoo  !  hoo  !  hoo,  the  Muscolgee ! 
Wah,  wah,  wah,  the  blasted  tree !  — 

with  mad  dancing  and  mad  drumming.  "  Now 
you  good  Kaw  —  Good  Injun  you  be  —  all 
same  me,"  the  Chief  told  him  at  the  end  of 
it  all.  And  there  were  buffalo  hunts  on  the 
plains,  and  meetings  with  Apaches,  and  a 
visit  to  General  and  Mrs.  Custer  at  Fort 
Marker,  —  "there  was  a  bright  and  joyous 
chivalry  in  that  man,  and  a  noble  refinement 
mingled  with  constant  gaiety  in  the  wife,  such 
as  I  fear  is  passing  from  the  earth."  The  jour 
ney  to  Lake  Superior  led  to  more  Indians 


YEARS   OF  STORM   AND    STRESS    289 

and  to  more  excursions,  "all  through  the 
grene  wode  wilds,  and  I  enjoyed  it.  I  had 
Indian  society,  and  learned  Indian  talk,  and 
bathed  in  rushing  waters,  and  saw  enormous 
pine  trees  300  feet  high,  and  slept  al  fresco 
and  ate  ad  libitum.  To  this  day  its  remem 
brance  inspires  in  me  a  feeling  of  deep,  true 
poetry."  And  so,  little  as  he  then  knew  it,  his 
wild  adventures  in  the  open  came  to  an  end. 
Many  and  more  marvellous  adventures  were  to 
follow,  but  they  were  of  a  very  different  kind. 
Another  pleasure,  greater  if  less  wild,  that 
1867  brought  him  was  the  honour  bestowed 
upon  him  by  Harvard.  The  first  intimation 
had  come  as  far  back  as  the  October  of  1866 
in  a  letter  from  Lowell.  It  is  a  charming 
letter,  and  I  give  it  now  because  of  this  inti 
mation,  though  the  reference  to  the  "  Breit- 
mann  Ballads,"  equally  long,  might  make 
it  seem  more  appropriate  to  the  chapter  on 
Breitmann. 

JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL   TO   CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND 

ELMWOOD,  i6th  Oct.,  1866. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  am  heartily  ashamed  of 
myself  for  not  answering  your  letter  sooner. 


290  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

I  am  always  committing  the  same  sin  and 
feeling  the  same  remorse,  till  at  last  letters 
have  become  as  unanswerable  to  me  as  if 
they  were  bad  conundrums.  It  was  not  that 
I  forgot  you  —  on  the  contrary,  Mr.  Child 
and  I  are  resolved  to  get  you  made  a  Master 
of  Arts  here,  so  that  you  may  be  one  of  us 
and  that  we  may  have  the  chance,  now  and 
then,  of  seeing  you  at  our  college  festivals. 
We  have  very  (great)  fun  at  them  sometimes, 
—  a  better  kind  of  fun  than  the  common  civic 
feast  affords. 

Mr.  Bristed  was  good  enough  to  send  me 
your  "  Breitmann's."  I  do  not  know  when  I 
have  enjoyed  anything  more  highly.  The 
parody  on  the  "  Hildebrandlied  "  was  wonder 
fully  good,  and  in  all  of  them  the  ingenuity 
with  which  you  have  managed  the  German 
pronunciation  (especially  in  choosing  words 
where  the  transposition  of  p  and  b,  d  and  t, 
is  comic)  adds  a  new  chord  to  the  lyre  of  hu 
mour.  The  one  in  which  he  is  taken  prisoner 
and  rejoins  Sherman  thoroughly  tickled  me. 
I  read  it  aloud  at  breakfast,  so  well  as  laugh 
ing  would  let  me  —  for  I  would  not  trust  the 
accent  to  less  skilful  lips,  and  it  made  us  all 
laugh  till  we  cried.  Why  do  you  not  collect 


S 


* 


S  %T 


& 


w 


.  /. 


FROM  JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL 


4 


'4    : 


V 


1  ^  .i 

^ N;  4 

^  v 

<  ^  ^ 


4 


^ 

q 


^  ^  v 


^ 


/JcS  f^H^f  tfafa 

ft 


£*-2     ff"rf    x»&  JL    *^   tiLJP 
v  s>  w 

r'4-4*:^ 

7     '-'•'    ^  JL-S  /      ' 

ses**.&~.  *  SfreA  '  ffnrOk*_ 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    291 

them  ?    If  you  do,  I  will  give  them  a  hearty 
lift  in  the  "  North  American." 

As  to  the  "  Wunderhorn,"  I  know  of  no 
English  translation  thereof.  I  suppose  by 
your  question  that  you  are  meditating  one. 
If  so,  I  think  you  should  rather  make  a  selec 
tion  than  a  complete  version  —  there  are  so 
many  that  are  like  each  other.  Moreover, 
the  book  would  be  too  large.  I  think  if  you 
boiled  down  the  four  volumes  into  one,  it 
would  make  a  very  acceptable  book  and  fill 
a  gap  in  our  English  ballads  and  folk-songs. 
Some  of  them  are  very  charming,  but  as  a 
collection  there  is  too  much  of  the  German 
sin  of  exhaustiveness,  don't  you  think  so? 
We  English-speaking  Teutons  are  not  such 
Titans  in  our  power  of  digestion. 

By  the  way,  could  n't  you  carry  Breitmann 
to   Mexico  (which  I  suppose  we  must  call 
Maxico  now)  as  a  member  of  the  Foreign 
Legion  and  make  some  good  sport  with  the 
new  Sheriff's  process  of  an  Empire  ?  or  have 
him   join  the    Fenians?    His  German-Irish 
brogue  would  be  capital  fun  in  your  hands. 
With  very  cordial  regards, 
Yours  truly, 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 


292  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Having  given  Lowell's  letter,  I  might  as 
well  add  to  it  one  from  Dr.  Holmes,  only 
three  months  later  in  date,  which  is  as  sincere 
a  tribute  to  Breitmann,  and  as  disinterested 
testimony  to  the  position  to  which  the  Phila 
delphia  journalist  had  climbed  in  the  world 
of  letters. 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES  TO  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

BOSTON,  Jan.  26,  1867. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  LELAND,  —  I  received  and 
read  with  huge  delectation  the  travels  and 
adventures  of  Hans  Breitmann  and  his  goodly 
company.  The  whole  is  good  as  it  can  be, 
but  "  Hans  Breitmann  went  to  Kansas,"  like 
all  I  have  seen  of  Hans,  is  too  good.  I  hope 
that  is  yours  too,  for  the  fun  of  it  is  deli 
cious. 

You  write  in  such  spirits  I  know  you  are 
well  and  happy,  which  pleases  me  to  think 
upon.  We  put  poor  Willis  to  bed  in  Mount 
Auburn  on  Thursday  and  tucked  him  up  in 
as  fleecy  a  white  blanket  as  the  careful  old 
mother  would  weave  for  him  with  her  loom 
of  cloud  and  wind.  It  was  on  his  sixty-first 
birthday  that  he  died,  and  it  is  as  it  were  this 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    293 

morning  that  I  was  reading  those  lines  of  his, 
just  out:  — 

I  'm  twenty-two,  I  'm  twenty-two, 

They  idly  give  me  joy, 
As  if  I  should  be  glad  to  know 

That  I  was  but  a  boy. 

Whether  I  first  read  them  this  morning,  or 
almost  forty  years  ago,  they  have  been  always 
in  my  memory  since  the  time. 

I  am  busy  as  usual  at  this  season,  lecturing, 
and  in  addition  writing  a  serial  for  the  "  At 
lantic." 

We  have  our  Saturday  Club  to-day,  and  I 
wish  we  were  going  to  have  you  with  us. 
Very  truly  yours, 

O.  W.  HOLMES. 

This  is  a  digression.  More  to  the  point  is 
the  closing  paragraph  in  a  second  letter  from 
Lowell,  which  is  too  good  to  cut. 

JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL    TO   CHARLES  GODFREY   LELAND 

ELMWOOD,  9th  July,  1867. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  The  kind  of  collection 
you  think  of  making,  apart  from  its  interest, 
will  have  a  real  value.  I  think  it  would  be 


294  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

very  curious  to  see  how  far  and  in  what  re 
spects  the  original  German  legends  have  been 
modified  by  transplantation,  —  for  that  most 
of  them  will  be  found  to  have  been  imported 
I  have  no  doubt.  To  my  mind  this  faculty 
of  adaptation  in  man  is  almost  as  interesting 
as  that  of  invention,  and  it  is  always  touching 
to  see  how  soon  the  settlers  of  our  wilderness 
felt  the  bleakness  at  their  backs  and  tried 
to  get  up  a  screen  of  legend  and  tradition 
behind  them.  They  would  have  Indian  ones 
if  they  could  get  no  better,  and  at  any  rate 
would  have  our  bare  landscape  draped  with 
some  kind  of  memory.  If  I  were  you,  I  would 
pick  up  everything,  no  matter  how  trifling, 
and  invent  nothing.  I  have  always  supposed 
that  Irving  transferred  his  legendary  stones 
from  the  Old  World  to  the  New ;  if  not,  then 
Rip  Van  Winkle  is  vastly  more  interesting  to 
me  as  a  New  World  vulgarisation  of  Kaiser 
Rothbort.  Any  kind  of  rhymes,  nursery  or 
other,  would  also  be  worth  having,  and  you 
could  give  your  own  fancy  a  loose  in  the  set 
ting,  as  in  the  specimen  you  sent  me,  which 
I  found  very  interesting.  I  think  Souvestre's 
"  Foyer  Breton  "  and  the  others,  models  in 
that  kind  of  writing. 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    295 

• 

About  "  Mother  Goose,"  I  have  a  notion 
that  Mr.  Whale's  story  has  been  shown  to  be 
a  mere  invention  without  evidence  to  support 
it.  At  any  rate,  as  you  know,  the  name  was 
older  in  French,  and  unless  I  am  much  mis 
taken,  in  English  also.  The  College  Library 
is  just  now  closed,  so  that  I  cannot  answer  the 
special  question  you  ask  me.  A  few  years  ago 
a  nursery  rhyme  was  sent  me  from  Maine,  evi 
dently  old  and  evidently  from  the  old  country, 
for  St.  Paul's  was  alluded  to  in  it, — yet  it  is  in 
no  English  collection  that  I  am  acquainted 
with.  You  may,  in  like  manner,  find  some 
what  that  has  escaped  Grimm  and  the  rest. 

Mr.  Child,  I  believe,  has  written  you  that 
we  hope  to  make  you  a  Master  of  Arts  at  the 
coming  Commencement.  Of  course  the  mat 
ter  is  a  secret  as  yet,  for  it  has  to  pass  the 
Overseers,  who  sometimes  take  a  fancy  to 
show  their  authority  by  disagreeing  with  the 
Fellows,  with  whom  resides  the  right  of  nom 
ination.  I  may  without  indiscretion  say  to 
you  that  the  Fellows  have  sent  in  your  name 
with  that  of  Mr.  Howells,  whose  company 
I  am  sure  you  will  like.  Now  all  this  long 
prologue  is  to  introduce  my  egg  and  butter. 
Whether  or  no,  I  want  you  to  come  on  at 


296  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Commencement  (the  i7th),  for  on  the  eigh 
teenth  Emerson  is  to  deliver  an  oration  be 
fore  the  <£.  B.  K.  Society,  whereof  I  am  presi 
dent,  and  we  wish  to  make  the  occasion  as 
brilliant  as  we  can.  At  the  dinner  (to  which 
no  reporters  are  admitted)  we  have  songs, 
speeches,  etc.  If  Hans  Breitmann  would  give 
us  a  few  of  his  verses,  he  would  find  a  most 
congenial  audience.  I  am  very  sorry  that  I 
cannot  ask  you  to  stay  with  me,  as  I  had 
hoped  to  do,  but  my  house  is  and  will  be  full. 
Mr.  Child,  however,  will  more  than  make  up 
for  that. 

Your  Mastership  will  make  you  to  all  in 
tents  and  purposes  an  alumnus  with  right  of 
voting  at  elections  of  Overseers,  eating  Com 
mencement  dinners  and  the  like. 

Hoping  you  will  take  pains  to  come, 
I  remain,  my  dear  Sir, 
Cordially  yours, 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 

The  invitation  from  Mr.  Child  came  by  the 
same  mail,  and  it  lacked  nothing  in  warmth 
and  heartiness.  "  I  want  you  to  come  here, 
to  this  house  of  mine."  I  have  no  documents 
to  explain  why,  but  the  Rye  did  not  go,  and, 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND    STRESS    297 

on  the  23d  of  July,  Mr.  Child  was  writing 
again,  "  You  have  probably  seen  in  the  news 
papers  that  you  and  Howells  were  made 
M.  A.'s  on  Wednesday." 

I  should  like  to  keep  on  quoting  the  let 
ters  he  received  in  the  late  sixties,  but  there 
are  far  too  many.  Kimball  and  Stoddard,  and 
Mr.  Child  too,  continued  for  long  to  be  his  cor 
respondents.  William  H.  Herndon,  Lincoln's 
"  old  law-partner  "  in  Indiana,  was  contributing 
assiduously  to  a  collection  of  stories  of  Lin 
coln  which  the  Rye  had  begun,  but  which  he 
never  published.  Of  Charles  Astor  Bristed's 
letters  alone  a  big  book  might  be  made ;  and 
an  amusing  book  it  would  be,  with  vivid  little 
pictures  of  New  York  literary  life.  I  cannot 
resist  referring  to  just  one,  of  an  "  afternoon  " 
at  which  Lowell  produced  a  tremendous  sen 
sation  by  appearing  in  "  straw-colored  kids." 
Editors  were  asking  the  Rye  for  work,  none 
from  whom  it  was  more  of  a  compliment  than 
E.  L.  Godkin,  who  would  be  "glad  to  have 
anything  from  Mr.  Leland,  whether  prose  or 
verse,"  but  preferably  prose,  for  "  The  Na 
tion,"  recently  launched  on  its  distinguished 
career.  Younger  men,  whose  names  were  all 
in  the  future,  were  turning  to  him  for  advice, 


298   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

one  of  the  later  letters  of  this  decade  coming 
from  Dr.  B.  E.  Martin,  at  the  time  a  mere 
youth  starting  out  in  life.  It  would  be  an 
invaluable  collection  to  any  one  writing  the 
history  of  literary  America  in  the  second  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  but  there  is  no 
space  for  it  in  the  life  of  one  man,  —  one 
who  did  so  much  to  give  that  history  its 
distinction. 

In  November,  1867,  the  Rye's  father  died. 
It  was  some  comfort  to  the  son  that,  at  the 
end,  the  father,  who  had  so  often  regretted 
his  want  of  a  fixed  career  or  position,  had  the 
satisfaction  of  seeing  him  well  established  on 
the  paper  of  a  man  who,  however  audacious 
according  to  Puritan  standards,  could  be  re 
spected  for  his  power  and  success. 

Shortly  after  his  father's  death,  on  the  ist 
of  January,  1868,  the  Rye  began  the  first 
systematic  journal  that  has  outlived  the 
chances  of  time.  It  is  an  almost  daily  record 
of  his  work  and  occupations  during  four 
months.  Many  entries  refer  solely  to  per 
sonal  matters,  for  it  was  in  the  course  of  these 
months  that  his  father's  estate  was  settled, 
and  that  his  brother  Henry  died,  after  a  long 
and  cruel  illness.  Other  entries  are  the  barest 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    299 

notes  of  engagements.  But  there  is  still  much 
of  a  less  personal  nature  and  of  greater  elab 
oration,  and  a  faithful  picture,  if  slight,  is  to 
be  had  of  him  as  the  busy  journalist,  and  of 
American  journalism  in  the  sixties;  with  a 
sketch  here  and  there  of  people  whose  fame 
survives,  —  Dickens,  Ole  Bull,  Agassiz,  Gaz- 
zaniga,  Hauck ;  and  for  Philadelphians,  such 
a  suggestive  impression  of  the  Philadelphia 
of  the  time,  as,  to  my  knowledge,  has  never 
yet  been  given  —  the  Philadelphia  when 
"  Emily  Schaumberg "  was  the  belle  and 
Penington's  "store"  was  the  haunt  of  the 
book-lover,  when  snow  fell  with  old-fashioned 
violence,  and  Third  Street  was  convulsed  by 
old-fashioned  panics,  when  everybody  went 
mad  over  Offenbach,  when  one  started  for 
New  York  from  the  Walnut  Street  Ferry, 
when  George  Boker  was  writing  his  dramas 
and  George  Childs  was  beginning  to  play 
the  public  Maecenas.  I  wish  there  was  more 
of  it,  but  much  of  what  there  is  I  quote,  with 
the  exception  of  the  entirely  personal  notes 
and  the  brief  memoranda. 

i  January.  Guns  all  night  —  snow  and 
slops  in  the  morning  —  a  remarkable  spec 
tacle.  Received  a  call  from  a  Mr.  Hill.  Par- 


300  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

turitus  mons  —  the  Hill  brought  forth  a  pair 
of  India  soles,  and  solicited  an  extended  no 
tice.  At  eleven  o'clock  called  on  Mrs.  Forney 
and  encountered  D.  D.  (  [Dan]  Docherty) 
and  Mr.  E.,  premier  intriguant  at  the  Arch. 
At  night  suffered  till  2  A.  M.  with  a  horrible 
neuralgia.  .  .  . 

6.  Monday.  Schott  gave  me  a  curiously 
carved  cherry  stone  with  a  portrait  of  Johannes 
Bishop  of  Mayence  on  it  and  coat  of  arms 
and  inscription.    Dickens'  agent  in  the  office 
—  Great  excitement,  Dickens'  tickets. 

7.  Tuesday.    Nothing    very    remarkable. 
Office  work  as  usual.    Scene.  Elderly   dame 
with  MSS:  "  This  is  for  Mr.  Forney."  Self: 
"  Well,  ma'am,  if  you  leave  it  I  will  give  it  to 
him."    E.  Lady :  "  It 's  quite  right  to  leave 
it  here  for  him,  is  it  ?  "   Self:  "  Quite  right." 
Elderly  Lady  disappears  —  but  raps  again, 
and  puts  her  head  in  at  the  door,  inquiring : 
"  There  was  nothing  improper  in  my  coming 
up  here,  was  there  ?  "  An  old  maid,  I  '11  bet  a 
fip.  In  the  evening  I  went  to  the  Opera, "  Don 
Giovanni."    Ronconi  was  as  good  as  of  old 
when  I  heard  him  in  Europe.    Miss  Hauck 
acted   and   sang  with  spirit  and  exuberant 
gaiety.   Supper  at  Green's. 


YEARS    OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    301 

8.  Wednesday.  Evening,  took  Mrs.  Forney 
and  Mary  Forney  to  the  Opera  "  La  Favorita." 
Gazzaniga  had  the  same  face  —  not  sympa 
thetic  to  me  —  and  the  same  tolerable  sort  of 
voice  as  of  old.    Balthazar  scolding  Fernan 
while  La  Favorita  knelt ;  "  He  is  down  on  his 
nephew,  ivhile  she  is  down  on  her  knees?  [The 
Rye  was  just  then  writing  burlesque  librettos 
of  the  more  popular  operas,  and  this  probably 
was  a  hint  for  one  of  them.]    The  cross  on 
Balthazar's  breast  exactly  resembled  four  large 
red  Euphorbia  leaves,  or  a  great  flower.   Miss 
Mary  Forney  said  he  must  be  an  Englishman 
—  he  wore  such  a  large  flower  at  his  button- 
hole.  Which  concluded  the  entertainment. 

9.  Thursday.    Blitz   in    the   office  —  ven 
triloquising  at    the  door.    [How  many  gen 
erations  of  Philadelphia  children  thrilled  to 
the  ventriloquising   of   "  Signor   Blitz,"  and 
hung  breathless  on  those  wonderful  talks  of 
his  with   the    incomparable,  squeaky-voiced 
Bobby !]    Evening,  with  M.  R.  Fisher  to  the 
Opera.    The  house  was  splendid.    First,  one 
act  of  "  II  Barbiere,"  —  then  a  concert  —  then 
more  Barber.    In  the  middle  of  the  second 
act,  at  1 1  o'clock,  the  whole  house  was  yawn 
ing  and  we  went  home.     Of  course,  Mme. 


302  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Rosa  was  taken  sick  and  withdrew,  and  my 
notice  of  the  op.  which  was  in  type  before  it 
had  operated,  contained  no  elusion  to  that 
omission.  Which  is  my  third  blissful  blunder. 

10.  Friday.    Inquired  where  I  could  take 
lessons  in  chasing  silver.    In  the  evening  to 
the  "Carnival  of  Venice";  very  light  music, 
very  little,  apparently,  in  it  to  remember,  but 
pretty ;  the  plot  is  old-fashioned  Italian,  the 
humbugging  a  watchful  father  by  two  gal 
lants,  a  stupid  servant,  a  Carnival  scene,  and 
a  reconciliation  —  very  much  like  a  thousand 
other  things  of  the  kind,  but  made  very  funny 
by  Ronconi  and  excellent  by  Miss  Hauck. 
Like  a  chapter  from  Casanova  with  souvenirs 
of  Canaletto. 

11.  Saturday.  Went  to  Penington's  book 
store.    Mr.  B.  P.  Hunt  [his  old  schoolmaster] 
and  Ed.   Buckley  there.    Gossip,  that    Miss 
Hauck  of  the  Opera  was  originally  a  girl  in 
a  lager  beer  saloon  in  New  York,  and  that 
the  rich  Jerome  had  her  educated.    Wonder 
ful  genius.   If  she  ever  goes  to  Europe  she  will 
be  a  second   Patti.  —  In  the  evening,  there 
was  a  grand  concert  at  the  Academy.   Selec 
tions  from  Rossini's  "Stabat  Mater,"  etc.,  with 
Baragli,  Mmes.  Behrens  and  Testa,  Anton- 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    303 

ucci,  etc.  I  went  with  Dr.  Schott  and  re 
mained  half  through.  "  De  "  Meyer  [a  pianist 
and  leader  of  orchestra,  if  I  am  not  mistaken] 
is  a  perfect  specimen  of  an  old  petit  maitre, 
a  curiosity.  Moustache,  hat,  gloves,  poses, 
and  smile  are  all  as  rococo  as  possible.  Je 
voyais  revivre  le  beau  de  1837. 

14.  Tuesday.  Saw  Miss  Colton,  who  gave 
an   account    of    Charles    Dickens'    reading. 
People  generally  disappointed  in   Dickens. 
Went  to  Anna  Halsted's  wedding  reception. 
A  very  lively  and  pretty  Miss  Pettit  kept  me 
laughing  for  some  time.  Bought  india-rubber 
shoes,  $1.50.   Snow.    Opera,  "  Lucretia  Bor 
gia,"  very  well  sung,  with  Mme.  Gazzaniga 
as  Lucretia,  Mme.  Testa  as  Orsini,  Baragli 
as  Gennaro,  and  Antonucci   as   the  Duke. 
Numerous   pretty  girls   and   other  subjects 
for  comment,  not  forgetting  my  collection  of 
old  opera  bills.    Pineapple  water-ice :  a  com 
bination  of   the  pine  and  the  palm,  of  ice 
and  tropical  luxury.    Ein  Fichtenbaum  steht 
einsam.    Pineapple  water-ice  is  like  eating 
Heine's  poetry  with  a  spoon.    Dropped  into 
Penington's  and  looked  over  a  curious  old 
French  book  on  the  Knights  Templars. 

15.  Wednesday.    Evening,  went  with  Dr. 


304   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Schott  to  Academy  of  Music.  The  opera 
was  "  Linda."  After  the  opera  I  went  down 
to  the  office.  Great  excitement  among  the 
brokers  in  consequence  of  Grant  and  Stanton. 
Gold  at  4 1 .  Supper  at  Green's  and  heard  that 
Black  Charley,  who  used  to  open  oysters 
there,  had  died  very  suddenly  the  night  be 
fore  of  heart  complaint  caused  by  grief  for 
the  loss  of  his  wife. 

1 6.  Thursday.  In  the  afternoon  to  Sentz's 
concert.  Felix  Bernhert  played  the  piano. 
Felix  is  a  name  of  happy  omen  since  it  con 
tains  the  letters  IXL.  And  as  I-XL  may 
mean  40  save  i,  these  may  apply  to  the  "  lix  " 
which  those  got  who  were  whipped  according 
to  the  law  of  Moses.  Blitz  was  in  the  office 
yesterday  and  told  a  good  story,  —  how  once 
in  a  New  England  town,  he  had  no  place  to 
sleep,  and  was  courteously  invited  by  an  old 
fellow  to  a  bed,  and  received  the  next  morn 
ing  a  good  breakfast.  On  asking  what  he  had 
to  pay,  he  was  told  "  nothing."  "  But  I  must 
pay  you,"  answered  Blitz,  "  I  cannot  think  of 
taxing  your  hospitality  gratis."  "  There  ain't 
nothin'  to  pay  here,"  was  the  reply.  "  This  is 
the  town  poorhouse,  and  we  never  charge 
nobody  a  cent." 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    305 

19.  Sunday.  In  the  afternoon  I  went  to 
see  G.  H.  Boker;  talked  on  literary  appre 
ciation  by  the  public  and  the  more  cultivated 
classes.  George  read  me  several  MSS.  sonnets 
which  he  had  recently  written;  two  or  three 
on  this  very  subject.  He  seemed  disposed  to 
take  a  melancholy  view  of  the  subject,  and 
dwelt  en  passant  on  the  very  slender  amount 
of  sympathy  or  applause  generally  extended 
to  poets  not  absolutely  of  the  first  class,  as 
regards  popularity.  Men  look  at  nothing  but 
the  very  first.  It  is  shoulder-straps  or  nichts. 
I  remarked  that  a  vast  change  had  taken 
place  during  the  past  three  centuries.  In 
those  days,  poetry,  like  embroidered  garments, 
fine  dwellings,  great  jewelry  (vide  Cellini's 
Life),  or  pictures,  was  a  matter  of  public  and 
general  interest.  Nowadays  there  are  more 
"  educated  "  people,  but  the  main  interest  and 
admiration  of  life  is  turned  towards  the  results 
of  genius  as  shown  in  "practical"  matters  and 
industrial  achievements.  George  seems  in 
clined  to  bear  down  on  this  practical,  soulless, 
Gradgrind  age.  Mr.  Young  of  the  "  Albion  " 
has  spoken  of  him  sincerely  and  warmly  as 
one  of  the  first  poets  in  America.  It  seems 
to  me  that  it  is  a  great  thing  to  be  even 


3o6  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

only  one  of  the  first  among  some  thirty-five 
millions  of  people.  Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes  once, 
in  conversation  or  in  a  letter,  said  that  Boker's 
"  Dirge  "  was  the  best  poem  of  the  kind  ever 
written.  I  believe  he  meant  during  the  war. 
In  his  article  on  H.  H.  Brownell's  poems,  he 
declared  these  latter  to  be  the  only  lyrics  of 
value  which  the  war  had  brought  forth.  R. 
W.  Emerson,  in  Boston  in  1862,  told  me  he 
thought  that "  Let  us  alone  "  was  the  best  bit 
of  humour  the  war  had  produced.  He  did  not 
know  the  name  of  the  author,  and  I  only 
knew  the  initials  and  address.  I  wrote  to 
Mr.  Brownell  and  informed  him  of  what  Em 
erson  had  said,  thinking  it  would  gratify  him, 
and  sent  a  note  to  Emerson  informing  him 
as  to  Brownell's  name,  hoping  it  might  ben 
efit  the  latter.  There  are  times  when  such 
meddling  is  not  out  of  place.  In  the  evening 
I  read  the  "  Life  of  Benvenuto  Cellini."  He 
was  the  Ulrich  von  Hutten  of  art.  What  as 
tonishes  me  is  the  enormous  vitality  of  the 
man  and  his  restless  desire  to  acquire  know 
ledge  and  excel.  He  had  the  faculty  of  taking 
interest  to  a  great  degree,  as  had  also  Leo 
nardo  da  Vinci.  It  is  delightful  to  catch  in 
Cellini's  work  so  many  "  living  glimpses  "  of 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    307 

great  men  such  as  Da  Vinci  and  Michael 
Angelo.  I  have  been  trying  to  get  a  teacher 
to  give  me  lessons  in  chasing  silver  and 
metal,  and  this  reading  of  this  book  came  in 
quite  apropos. 

21.  Tuesday.  .  .  .  Ideas  for  a  travestie  of 
"  Faust."  First  scene,  Faust,  an  Apothecary, 
summons  spirits  by  medium  of  a  bottle  of 
brandy.  Rappings,  in  response,  table  dances, 
and  a  pair  of  tongs  suddenly  assumes  a  head 
and  walks  and  talks.  Mephistopheles  appears 
and  makes  Faust  a  printer  and  editor  —  gives 
him  free  passes  to  all  the  theatres,  and  dead 
heads  him  to  "  life  "  generally,  on  condition 
that  he  will  at  the  end  of  the  year  go  to  hell  and 
vote  the  Democratic  ticket !  The  Blocksberg 
—  a  lager-beer  cellar. 

26.  Sunday.  Afternoon,  G.  H.  Boker.  He 
read  to  me  aloud  the  whole  of  Swinburne's 
poem  of  "  Dolores,"  and  pointed  out  with  great 
accuracy  the  passages  in  it  which  indicated 
the  influence  of  De  Sade.  It  possesses  won 
derful  subtlety  of  thought  and  is  full  of  latent 
lasciviousness.  .  .  .  Swinburne  and  De  Sade 
both  persist  in  clothing  their  ideal  with  agony, 
tears,  and  blood,  and  see  at  the  end  only  ashes 
and  desolation.  I  have  always  thought  that 


308  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

De  Sade,  reduced  to  facts  and  logic,  is  as 
moral  as  Paley.  All  his  arguments  in  favour 
of  atheism  and  unnatural  crime  amount  to  the 
destruction  of  all  social  harmony  and  the  right 
of  strength  and  accident  to  subdue  weakness 
and  settled  organisation.  As  for  Swinburne's 
melancholy  —  Pleasure  should  be  joyous. 

30.  Thursday.  In  the  evening  I  went  with 
Belle  to  hear  Chas.  Dickens,  at  Concert  Hall, 
read  "  Doctor  Marigold  "  and  "  Bob  Sawyer's 
Party."  His  hair  is  gray  and  scanty,  but  is 
brushed  up  on  either  side  in  expansive  locks 
in  a  very  "  swell "  manner  which  has  proved 
an  irresistible  temptation  to  the  negro  min 
strels.  He  had  on  rather  large  shirt  studs,  a 
large  showy  ring,  sleeve  buttons,  and  a  heavy 
gold  chain  fastened  by  a  locket  in  the  middle 
and  leading  in  double  festoons  to  either  watch 
pocket,  as  if  he  wore  two  watches.  In  his 
coat  button-hole  were  two  flowers  of  different 
colours,  according  to  his  invariable  custom. 
There  was  not  a  youth  in  the  whole  house 
who  was  "  got  up  so  loudly."  It  gave  me  fre 
quently  a  very  melancholy  and  disagreeable 
feeling  to  see  an  author  of  so  much  ability, 
who  has  touched  the  tenderest  feelings  of 
hundreds  of  thousands,  grimacing  and  play- 


YEARS  OF   STORM   AND   STRESS     309 

ing  the  mime  as  Dickens  did  last  night,  and 
"  acting  funny."  His  gold  chain  bore  a  large 
locket,  and  at  intervals  of  three  inches  on  it 
were  red  coral  balls.  His  ring  was  a  large  dia 
mond,  and  between  the  readings  he  changed 
the  flowers  at  his  button-hole. 

31.  Friday.  Evening,  went  to  Dickens 
again  with  Belle.  Geo.  W.  Childs  on  the 
stairway  as  usual,  showing  himself.  Dickens 
read  his  abridgement  of  "  David  Copper- 
field  "  and  "  Boots  at  the  Holly  Tree  Inn." 

February  i,  Saturday.  Went  to  E.  Robins 
to  buy  U.  S.  bond.  Philadelphia  Library.  Saw 
Mrs.  Hooper  and  Mr.  Hart.  Inquired  of  Mr. 
Smith  for  a  writer  for  some  locals.  Pening- 
ton's  bookstore.  Looked  over  divers  old 
books,  such  as  Anne  Marie  Schurmann's 
"Opuscula,"  Salmasius  and  Milton's  De 
fences,  Selden's  "  De  Diis  Syriis,"  "  Pathelin," 
the  "  Ars  Conservandi,"  etc.  ("Schola  Saler- 
nitana"),  and  Scaliger's  "  De  Subtilitate  ad 
Hier.  Cardan."  Saw  Charles  Stille  and  Mr.  B. 
P.  Hunt.  Evening,  took  tea  at  Mr.  Colton's. 
Had  fried  scallops  for  supper,  which  are  like 
fried  oysters.  Went  over  "  Meister  Karl " 
with  Miss  D.  to  select  chapters  for  publica 
tion.  Not  an  easy  business.  Trop  de  veau  — 


3io  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

too  much  self-consciousness  in  the  book,  and 
not  freshness  and  vigour. 

2.  Sunday.  Morning,  office  —  translated 
from  French  journals.  Afternoon,  G.  H. 
Boker's.  He  read  aloud  Swinburne's  new 
poem  to  Baudelaire,  which  suggests  Mil 
ton's  "  Lycidas."  This  poem  is  characteristic 
of  Swinburne  and  shows  more  of  the  strength 
of  poison  than  of  muscle.  He  also  read 
Tennyson's  last  poem,  a  very  light  little  thing, 
ending  without  point,  though  there  is  a  verse 
in  it  which  would  have  made  a  capital  ending. 
For  this  little  poem  Tennyson  received  ,£500 
(no  shillings  or  pence).  George  told  a  story 
how  the  day  before,  seeing  a  big  fellow  among 
others  strike  a  boy,  he  interposed.  Where 
upon  one  cried,  "D it,  if  the  old  man 

hasn't  got  his  fists  doubled!"  He  had  been 
to  hear  Dickens,  liked  his  reading,  and  com 
mented  on  the  pure  objectivity  of  all  his 
characters.  Said  Dickens  wrote  without  self- 
consciousness. 

4.  Tuesday.  Worked  on  the  new  edition 
of  "  Meister  Karl."  Evening,  went  to  Acad 
emy  of  Music.  Lewis's  Gymnastic  Exhibi 
tion.  Colton  boys  sat  by  me,  and  were  much 
pleased.  When  the  sparring  began,  the 


YEARS   OF   STORM  AND  STRESS     311 

youths  in  the  gallery  shouted  for  the  police : 
"  Go  for  his  right  eye ! "  "  Bang  him  on 
the  neck ! "  "  Po-lice !  "  "  Close  up  his  other 
eye ! "  —  I  myself  went  for  a  dozen  oysters, 
cum  cerevisia,  when  it  was  all  over,  and  then 
home.  John  "  off  "  all  day.  Disappeared  with 
Martini  Monday  forenoon.  Curious  customer 
named  F ,  a  N.  O.  French  Creole,  sup 
plied  us  by  Smith  of  the  Library  [Lloyd 
Smith  of  the  Philadelphia  Library,  evidently], 
was  in  the  office.  He  had  collaborated  some 
thing  with  Etienne  Arago,  and  known  Dumas 
and  Louis  Blanc,  and  others  "particularly 
much,"  etc. 

5.  Wednesday.  F.  looked  in  to  know  if  he 
could  have  a  further  advance  for  the  article 
on  Amusements  which  is  as  yet  unwritten. 
Cela  sent  un  pen  de  la  Boheme.  He  has 
already  received  $10  for  "expenses."  Saw 
Miss  Lydia  Mason  yesterday  in  the  street. 
Also  Emily  Schaumberg.  Evening,  Agassiz 
at  Horticultural  Hall.  Went  with  Dr.  Schott 
on  the  platform,  or  stage,  where  were  H.  C. 
Carey,  Dr.  Leconte,  and  many  other  savans. 
Professor  A.  lectured  in  a  plain,  common- 
sensible,  but  not  peculiarly  original  or  vigor 
ous  style,  on  teaching,  urging  the  "  object  " 


312     CHARLES   GODFREY  LELAND 

method,  which  he  did  not,  however,  indicate 
by  that  name.  I  was  introduced  to  him  in 
Boston,  in  the  winter  of  1861-62. 

10.  Monday.    Clear  and  slippery.    Got  my 
hair  cut  at  Gray's.    Wrote  to  Mr.  Pooley  in 
New  York  as  to  "  Meister  Karl."   His  address 
is  No.  331  Pearl  St.    Went  round  to  Colton's 
to  go  to  Professor  Rogers'  lecture,  but  found 
it  was  to  be  to-morrow.    Evening,  Dr.  Schott 
in  our  room.    Made  some  Gluhwein  of  claret. 

11.  Tuesday.    Fine  day,  very  cold.    SawT. 
B.  Peterson  and  Ringwalt  as  to  publishing  the 
"Breitmann  Ballads."   Sent  Colonel  Forney 
a  statement  as  to  "  Weekly  Press,"  showing 
a  clear  profit  of   $135  for  the  past  week. 
Story  of  the  crows  which,  during  the  winter, 
fly  in  large  numbers   from   New  Jersey  to 
Pennsylvania  every  morning  and  return  in 
the  afternoon.    A  Jersey  man  being  asked 
why  they  did  this,  replied  that  the  food  in 
N.  J.  was  too  rich  for  them.    In  the  evening 
I  went  with  Miss  Julia  Colton  to  see  "  La 
Grande  Duchesse  de  Gerolstein  "  at  the  opera. 
It  was  extremely  amusing,  bouffe,  riante,folle.. 
Went  down  to  the  office  afterward  and  wrote 
an  article  on  the  opera. 

12.  Wednesday.  Morning  papers  all  full  of 


YEARS  OF   STORM  AND    STRESS     313 

"  La  Grande  Duchesse."  Nothing  particular 
during  the  day.  In  the  evening,  I  went  again 
to  see  the  "  Grande  De "  with  Belle,  who  en 
joyed  it  very  much.  The  performers  entered 
with  great  spirit  into  the  play.  Saw  Edward 
Robins  and  wife  there. 

15.  Saturday.  "  Duchesse "  matinee.  Old 
French  stage  associations  rise  like  many 
ghosts  from  the  Latin  Quarter  days,  and  I 
could  write  a  book  out  of  them. 

1 8.  Tuesday.  In  at  tailor's.  Zacchy  told 
some  Hungarian  stories  with  good  effect. 

21.  Friday.  News  of  Stan  ton's  difficulty 
with  the  President.  Trouble  at  Washington. 

24.  Monday.  Evening,  I  went  alone  to 
the  Chestnut  St.  Theatre.  Bateman's  French 
Dramatic  Company.  They  played  "  La  Joie 
fait  Peur."  After  this  they  played  "  Les 
Amours  de  Cleopatre,"  a  very  lively  and  jolly 
comedy  in  three  acts,  in  which  Mile.  Reillez 
played  a  part  which  seemed  like  old  times  and 
the  Quartier  Latin.  "  My  daughter,"  says 
the  father,  "  when  you  shall  have  been  thirty 
years  in  the  cork  business,  you  will  not  be 
astonished  at  anything  dans  la  nature."  I  am 
almost  certain  this  old  fellow  used  to  play 
twenty  years  ago  at  Bobino's. 


314  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

28.  Friday.  First  clear  day  since  Monday 
—  Governor  Curtin  came  up  into  the  office  to 
secure  the  nomination  for  Vice-Presidency. 
Evening  went  with  Belle  to  see  "  Les  Diables 
Rouges"  —  music  by  Offenbach. 

8  March,  Sunday.  Morning,  office,  "  Press." 
Afternoon,  John  Harrison's.  Evening,  staid 
at  home.  Illuminated  my  copy  of  Swinburne's 
poems.  Singular  fascination  in  all  such  small 
fancy  work.  Perhaps  women  find  it  in  sew 
ing. 

13.  Friday.   At  Penington's,  where  I  or 
dered  some  books.    Evening  at  Ole  Bull's 
again  with  Belle.    Pollak  sang  and  Ole  Bull 
played  immediately  after  a  Polac-ca.    Where 
is  Pollak  mentioned  in  Shakespeare  ? 

"  I  smote  the  sledded  Polak  on  the  ice  "  —  (eyes?) 

The  audience  made  asses  of  themselves  as 
before  with  noisy  and  excessive  encoring. 

14.  Saturday.    Met  Miss  Sally  Pettit  and 
walked  with  her.   A  charming  and  beautiful 
petite.    Went  to  Ole  Bull's  matinee.    Went 
behind  the  scenes  and  had  a  short  but  very 
interesting  conversation  with  the  great  vio 
linist.    He  said  that  he  had  so  much  improved 
his  method  of  playing  since  ten  years,  that  it 


YEARS   OF   STORM  AND  STRESS     315 

was  no  longer  the  same.  He  said — that  the 
bow  should  be  thick  so  as  to  produce  great 
elasticity,  and  showed  me  his ;  that  violinists 
should  play  freely  from  the  chest,  and  drew 
himself  up.  He  has  a  magnificent  chest.  Then 
he  urged  the  necessity  of  mastering  equally 
the  art  of  playing  on  every  part  of  the  violin, 
neck  and  all.  Also  that  he  intended  to  write 
a  book  and  should  experiment  this  summer 
with  different  violins.  I  spoke  of  Chladni's 
"Traite  sur  les  Sons,"  or  "L'Acoustique,"  and 
experiments  with  sound  on  glass,  and  com 
mended  him  to  consult  Prof.  Henry  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institution.  He  said  he  should. 
Also  told  me  that  the  effort  to  make  violins 
on  the  vibratory  principle  had  failed. 

15.  Sunday.    Col.   Forney  at  office.     Im 
peachment    progressing.      Could    not    see 
George  Boker  again,  owing  to  Mrs.  Boker's 
illness.     Evening,  read  in   Creuzer's  "Sym- 
bolik."    I  met  Creuzer  once  in  Heidelberg  — 
where  he  persisted  in  calling  me  Herr  Baron, 
and  was  pleased  at  my  knowing  the  style  of 
Merovingian  swords. 

1 6.  Monday.  Went  with  Belle  to  hear  Mrs. 
Butler,  or  Fanny  Kemble,  read  —  I  saw  Mrs. 
Butler,  then  Fanny  Kemble,  as  Beatrice  in 


3i6  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

"  Much  Ado  about  Nothing"  some  34  years 
ago,  and  can  remember  distinctly  her  impet 
uous  manner  and  "  fiery  eyes."  I  heard  her 
read  also  —  it  seems  to  me  in  1849  or  1850. 
She  did  not,  as  I  thought,  excel  in  the  lighter 
and  characteristically  humorous  parts,  and, 
with  the  best  will  in  the  world  to  admire,  I 
thought  her  talents  extremely  exaggerated. 
Last  night  in  reading  "Antony  and  Cleo 
patra,"  she  cut  out  a  great  part  of  the  play, 
and,  in  fact,  confined  herself  principally  to 
the  two  chief  characters.  I  suppose  she  did 
this  from  a  consciousness  of  her  inability 
to  do  justice  to  the  other  parts.  In  plainer, 
humorous  reading  she  has  a  disagreeable 
Yankee-like,  almost  nasal  twang.  Her  voice 
is  good,  but  her  natural  style  is  "  sensational," 
and  old-fashioned  intense  —  inclining  to  rant, 
and  as  she  is  conscious  of  this  and  endeavours 
to  subdue  it,  we  are  conscious  in  turn  of 
something  unnatural.  It  is  the  art  which,  like 
Gazzaniga's  singing,  is  much  admired  by 
fashionable  and  dilletanti  people  who  think 
themselves  highly  cultivated  and  think  a  great 
deal  about  it.  I  once  went  from  Marseilles 
to  Civita  Vecchia  on  the  same  boat  as  Mrs. 
Butler,  1845. 


YEARS   OF   STORM  AND    STRESS    317 

20.  Friday.    Bought  little  fans,  and  three 
books    at    Penington's,    "  De   la  Caricature 
dans  I'Antiquite,"  "  Caresme-Prenant  et  Gau< 
tier-Garguille,"  and  a  charming  old  black-let* 
ter  tract  reprint.    Evening  went  with  Belle  to 
Opera  —  "  Ernani."     States,  the  new  singer, 
has  a  fine  figure  and  a  good  voice. 

21.  Saturday.    A  tremendous  snowstorm 
last  night  and  this  morning  —  nothing  like 
it  since  1856.    I  went  to  the  Matinee  at  the 
Academy ;  "  II  Barbiere."  Ronconi  very  good. 
Evening,  opera  again ;  "  Faust."    Miss  Hauck 
sang  in  German,  Italian,  and  French,  Habel- 
mann  in   German,  and  Antonucci  and  the 
rest  in  Italian.    After  2d  act  went  round  to 
Harrisons',  where  I  saw  the  Wight  girls. — 
Curious  and  mossy  loads  of  snow  on  every 
tree  and  on  the  slightest  objects.    I  saw  it  at 
least  14  inches  high  on  the  top  of  a  garden 
fence. 

22.  Sunday.   Called  at  G.  H.  Boker's,  Mrs. 
Boker  better.    Hopes  entertained  of  her  re 
covery.    Illuminated  from  the  work  on  old 
Merovingian  graves.  Evening,  Colton's.  Neu 
ralgia  and  sore  throat. 

24.    Tuesday.     Afternoon,     Levi,    Janau- 
schek's  agent,  came  in  and  gave  a  glowing 


3i8  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

recital  of  her  success  in  the  West.  He  seemed 
rather  astonished  when  I  told  him  he  would 
have  a  great  success  in  Boston,  saying  there 
were  not  many  Germans  there.  Evening  went 
with  Belle  and  Miss  Colton  to  the  Gazzaniga 
Concert  at  Concert  Hall.  De  Meyer  played 
on  the  piano,  Ardavani  the  baritone,  very 
good. 

30.  Monday.  Worked  at "  Meister  Karl "  — 
slow  work. 

31.  Tuesday.   Evening  at  Laura  Hooper's. 
Three  gentlemen  there,  three-card  monte,  and 
stories. 

i  April.  Janauschek  in  "  Marie  Stuart " 
—  Schiller's  —  very  fine  performance. 

3.  Friday.  Evening  at  Janauschek's,  Acad 
emy.  "  Leah  the  Forsaken."  A  poor  house 
as  usual  and  magnificent  acting.  Crelinger 
was  more  than  Jew  in  his  part. 

5.  Sunday.  Morning,  office.  Afternoon, 
G.  H.  Boker's.  Evening,  Colton's. 

8.  Wednesday.  Started  at  8  o'clock  from 
Walnut  St.  Ferry  [for  New  York] ;  saw  Mr. 
Horace  Greeley  absorbed  in  a  mass  of  news 
papers  in  a  corner  of  the  cabin.  Re-introduced 
myself.  He  said  very  little  at  first,  read  his 
papers,  asked  me  if  I  lived  in  Boston,  and 


YEARS   OF  STORM   AND   STRESS    319 

then  commented  on  some  new  mean  trick 

of  Governor  's  to  save  money.    I   said 

that  's  cotton   transactions   during   the 

war  were  extremely  disreputable,  as  I  knew 
from  the  agent  he  had  employed,  who  told 
me  all  about  them.  I  added  that  it  was  strange 

that  had  not,  at   his  point  of  wealth, 

found  it  of  more  advantage  to  be  honest 
than  dishonest ;  to  which  Mr.  Greeley  replied 
that  he  always  found  the  more  a  man  had, 
the  more  he  wanted,  and  that  a  man  with 
more  than  a  million  was  a  nuisance.  Then 
in  the  cars  he  read  proofs  and  newspapers, 
talked  of  building  material  such  as  concrete, 
commented  on  the  Hackensack  cut  and  re 
deeming  marshland,  and  when  I  asked  him 
to  write  a  book  on  Republicanism,  said  he 
intended  to  write  one  some  day  on  Political 
Economy.  I  suggested  to  him  that  Republi 
canism  correctly  viewed  was  really  nothing  but 
an  Industrial  Policy  —  to  which  he  assented. 
Also  admitted  that  Carey  was  right — but  too 
diffuse  to  be  of  practical  advantage.  Spoke 
of  the  "  Herald "  and  much  of  Mr.  Charles 
Dana  and  the  "  Sun."  I  left  him  in  Broadway. 
16.  Thursday.  Sent  "  Meister  Karl"  to 
W.  I.  Pooley.  Worked  on  Breitmann. 


320  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

1 8.  Saturday.  Finished  Breitmann  —  saw 
Mr.  Lindy  Smith  of  the  Union  League  and 
agreed  to  let  him  have  the  "  Weekly  Press  " 
as  a  campaign  paper  at  2  cents  apiece. 

19.  Sunday.   Office  in  the  morning.  Occu 
pied  with  Hans  Breitmann  placard.    G.  H. 
Boker  gone  to  New  York,  Mrs.  Harrison's. 

The  entries  were  getting  shorter  and 
shorter  —  a  mere  jotting  down  of  operas 
seen  and  noticed,  sometimes  the  notice  it 
self  cut  out  and  pasted  in  the  journal,  for 
future  reference  no  doubt.  By  the  second  of 
May,  they  ceased  altogether:  "2.  Saturday 
*  Cinderella  '  Matinee  —  English  opera  — 
Evening  at  Colton's "  is  the  last,  abruptly 
completing  the  diary  for  that  and  many 
years  to  come.  April  had  been  a  dreadful 
month  for  him,  for  it  was  in  April  that 
Henry  Leland's  illness  reached  its  crisis.  Not 
long  after  this  concluding  entry  he  died,  at 
an  age  when  much  good  work,  the  com 
plete  fulfilment  of  the  great  promise  he  had 
given,  might  still  be  hoped  to  lie  before  him. 
The  Rye  kept  on  with  his  journalism  for  a 
year  longer.  He  guided  the  policy  of  the 
"  Press  "  through  the  Presidential  campaign. 


YEARS   OF   STORM   AND   STRESS    321 

But  he  was  tired.  He  had  worked  without 
ceasing  for  twenty-one  years.  The  illness  of 
his  father  and  of  the  brother  whom  he  loved 
as  a  friend  had  meant  a  severe  strain;  the 
frequent  notes  of  neuralgia  in  the  journal  are 
warnings  to  the  reader  of  the  nervous  break 
down  he  had  every  reason  to  fear.  And  now, 
if  he  wanted,  he  could  be  independent  of 
newspapers  forevermore.  His  father  had  left 
him  ample  means,  to  which  had  been  added 
the  fourth  part  of  his  brother's  share  in  the 
estate.  In  the  spring  of  1869  he  was  induced 
to  resign  his  position  on  the  "  Press,"  —  tem 
porarily,  anyway,  he  may  have  thought, — 
let  the  house  he  had  just  bought  and  fur 
nished  in  Locust  Street,  pack  his  trunks,  and 
start  the  second  time  for  Europe. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

HANS  BREITMANN 

THE  first  time  the  Rye  sailed  for  Europe,  all 
his  work  lay  before  him.  But  now,  the  second 
time,  an  important  part  of  it  was  done :  the 
"  Breitmann  Ballads  "  had  been  written,  his 
reputation  was  made. 

I  could  only  wonder  how  he  managed  to 
publish  any  books  during  his  years  of  active 
journalism,  if  I  had  not  seen  for  myself,  later 
on,  the  great  facility  he  had  in  writing,  and 
his  unlimited  talent  for  industry.  "  I  hope 
that  you  and  Joe  are  well,"  he  wrote  to  me 
once  in  his  later  life.  "  That  you  are  always 
busy  like  me  means  that  the  chief  condition 
for  earthly  happiness  is  fulfilled,  for  though 
many  other  things  are  needed,  all  are  as  no 
thing  if  we  do  not  work."  There  were  times, 
indeed,  when,  to  restore  my  own  self-respect, 
I  should  have  welcomed  a  shadow  of  idleness 
in  him  as  a  virtue.  Any  one  else  in  his  posi 
tion  would  have  left  of  the  fifties  and  sixties 
merely  a  record  of  journalism,  more  or  less 


HANS   BREITMANN  323 

well  done,  for  the  American  newspaper  office 
then  supplied  no  pleasant  sinecures  to  any 
body  —  no  easy  ways  of  gaining  the  steady 
income  that  odd  literary  commissions  were  to 
supplement.  And,  at  the  best,  these  odd  lit 
erary  commissions  could  barely  keep  a  man 
from  starving,  unless  he  happened  to  be  N.  P. 
Willis,  who  anticipated  the,  modern  purveyor 
of  "  actualities  "  and  gossip,  or  Rufus  Gris- 
wold,  with  \iisflair  for  sensation.  The  more 
common  experience  was  that  of  the  young 
Hawthorne,  thankful  if  he  received  anything 
at  all  in  payment  of  his  work  ;  or  Longfellow, 
regretting  that  "  nobody  pays  nowadays  ;  "  or 
Poe,  paid  at  a  price  that  accounts  for  the 
poverty  of  that  tragic  little  cottage  on  the 
Hudson. 

This  was  why,  for  so  long  in  America,  to 
the  young  man  of  letters  without  the  inde 
pendent  fortune  he  is  so  seldom  blessed  with 
anywhere,  literature  was  a  side  issue,  a  pastime 
for  the  rare  leisure  left  over  from  the  serious 
money-making  hours  of  life.  Hawthorne  in 
the  Custom  House,  Bret  Harte  in  the  Glasgow 
Consulate,  Howells  as  official  representative 
of  his  country  in  Venice,  —  this  has  been  the 
rule.  It  was  for  an  income  the  Rye  turned 


324  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

to  journalism,  to  oil-prospecting,  to  rent-col 
lecting  in  the  wilds.  I  do  not  say  he  got  no 
pleasure  out  of  these  things  —  he  got  a  great 
deal.  He  would  not  have  done  them  so  well, 
if  he  had  not.  And  besides,  to  one  who  could 
imagine  romance  where  most  people  only  see 
commonplace,  the  newspaper  office  reeked 
with  it ;  to  the  lover  of  the  odd,  there  was 
a  Gypsy  side  to  the  horrors  of  the  camp  in 
Civil  War  time  ;  to  a  man  of  his  fine  physical 
development  in  his  prime,  "  the  wild  joys  of 
living  "  —  not  to  speak  of  the  joys  of  adven 
ture  with  Indians  and  strange  people  —  were 
the  reward  for  months  of  roughing  it  in  the 
backwoods  of  Tennessee  and  West  Virginia. 
There  is  an  undercurrent  of  savage  exultation 
throughout  his  account  of  these  experiences ; 
as  if  they  ran  always  to  the  refrain  of  that 
mad  Indian  song:  — 

Hoo  !  hoo  !  hoo  !  the  Muscolgee  ! 
Wah  !  wah  !  wah !  the  blasted  tree  ! 

But,  though  he  enjoyed  them  at  the  time, 
though  he  was  thankful  for  them  afterwards, 
they  were  not  the  experiences  he  would  have 
chosen,  had  he  been  free  to  choose ;  and  the 
proof  is  that  when  he  was  free,  when  he  was 
master  of  an  independent  income,  he  did  not 


HANS   BREITMANN  325 

attempt  to  repeat  or  rival  them.  He  devoted 
himself  to  literature:  in  literature  he  really 
lived  ;  in  literature  he  sought  and  found 
his  romance,  his  adventure,  his  mystery.  As 
with  every  dreamer,  it  was  the  idea,  the  sen 
timent  of  a  thing,  rather  than  the  thing  itself, 
that  inspired  him.  One  of  Borrow's  worship 
pers,  once,  had  his  moment  of  disillusion, 
when  he  saw  his  hero  armed  with  a  big  green 
umbrella  for  a  country  walk  on  a  gray  day. 
But  Borrow's  feeling  for  Nature  was  no  less 
because  he  sometimes  objected  to  risk  her 
discomforts :  he  could  hear  the  wind  on  the 
heath  in  the  respectable  Brompton  Square, 
as  well  as  on  the  open  moorland.  And  so, 
the  Rye  is  a  splendidly  picturesque  figure  as 
he  sits  in  his  canoe,  chanting  incantations  in 
the  face  of  death,  on  Southern  waters ;  or 
astride  his  horse,  riding  boldly  through  a 
guerilla-swept  land  ;  or  dancing  a  war  dance 
with  Red  Indians  on  Western  plains.  But  he 
is  no  less  picturesque,  and  far  more  what  he 
meant  and  wanted  to  make  of  himself,  in  his 
writings.  His  books  are  the  true  record  of 
his  life. 

By   diligent   searching,    I   might  unearth 
many  articles,  long  forgotten,  from  old  files 


326  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

of  the  "  Bulletin  "  and  the  "  Press,"  of  "  Gra 
ham's,"  the  "  Knickerbocker,"  and  the  "  Con 
tinental."  And  I  probably  should  recognise 
the  slightest  he  wrote  as  his  work,  for  neither 
journalistic  haste  nor  uncongenial  subjects 
could  destroy  or  suppress  his  individuality 
as  a  writer.  He  had  his  tricks  of  style,  as 
some  men  have  their  tricks  of  speech  or  man 
ner  by  which  you  may  know  them.  He  could 
not  keep  out  of  his  manuscripts  the  rhymes 
and  proverbs,  the  old  legends  and  traditions, 
the  quotations  and  allusions,  with  which  his 
memory  was  stored,  and  they  could  have 
come  from  no  other  literary  man  or  journal 
ist  of  his  generation.  But  the  fate  of  authors 
like  Thackeray,  at  the  zealous  hands  of  the 
modern  literary  ghoul,  makes  it  seem  kinder  to 
let  forgotten  articles  lie  forgotten.  The  man 
who  writes  to  time,  for  a  living,  occasionally 
turns  out  "  copy  "  he  would  as  lief  forget 
himself.  Besides,  the  Rye  did  what  most 
literary  men  in  his  position  do ;  he  collected 
many  of  his  magazine  articles  into  books,  he 
expanded  many  of  his  newspaper  articles  into 
pamphlets,  and  it  may  be  taken  for  granted 
that  he  preserved  all  he  wished  preserved,  and 
passed  over  all  he  wished  passed  over. 


HANS   BREITMANN  327 

Of  one  of  his  first  books,  I  know  nothing 
save  the  title,  but  it  tells  me  a  great  deal : 
"  The  Poetry  and  Mystery  of  Dreams."  He 
refers  to  this  work  in  the  "  Memoirs,"  without 
mentioning  the  name  of  the  publisher  or  the 
date  of  publication.  But  it  was  dedicated  to 
"  Miss  Belle  Fisher,"  and  therefore  belongs 
to  the  years  preceding  his  marriage.  For  the 
opening  of  his  literary  career  it  was,  in  its 
subject  anyway,  as  appropriate  as  the  rites  of 
his  nurse  had  been  for  his  initiation  into  life.1 

Another  of  his  earlier  ventures,  "  Meister 
Karl's  Sketch-Book,"  was  made  up  of  ar 
ticles  from  the  "  Knickerbocker  Magazine," 
and  published  by  Parry  and  McMillan  in 
Philadelphia,  in  1855.  An  "odd  melange,"  he 
calls  it.  Odd  it  may  be,  but  I  cannot  read  it 
now  without  realising  how  writing  it  must 
have  helped  him  through  the  dark  years  when 
he  tried  to  believe  himself  absorbed  in  the 
law.  For  the  greater  portion  belongs  to  this 
period,  though  it  was  practically  begun  as 
early  as  his  sixteenth  year.  The  spirit  of 

1  A  copy  of  this  rare  book  is  now  in  my  possession,  kindly 
sent  to  me  by  Mr.  Norcross,  but  I  did  not  receive  it  until 
after  my  MS.  had  gone  to  the  printer.  I  find  that  Butler  & 
Co.  of  Philadelphia  were  the  publishers,  and  1856  the  date. 


328  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

youth  breathes  through  every  line.  The  open 
ing  paragraph  alone  would  betray  the  age  of 
the  author: 

"Well,  my  friends! — are  we  all  in  our  places? 
Is  the  last  packet  thrown  in  ?  —  are  your  hats 
tied  up  ?  —  your  travelling  caps  on  ?  —  coat 
and  gown  settled  down?  Is  the  baggage 
snugly  stowed  away?  —  have  the  trunks  gone 
to  sleep  in  loving  unison  with  the  band-boxes 
upon  the  carpet-bags  ?  Major,  is  your  flask 
within  reach  ?  —  you  may  wish  to  refer  to  it. 
And  are  they  all  there,  the  gentle  ones,  in 
cluding  the  pretty  waiting-maid  outside  ?  (Are 
you  comfortable,  mamselle?)  And  lo!  here 
am  I,  your  courier,  your  friend,  your  guide 
that  is  to  be,  with  my  everlasting  green  bag, 
portfolio,  and  pipe.  What 's  all  that  row  with 
the  horses  ?  Lay  on  the  leather,  driver !  All 
right  —  dem  that  beggar! — go  a-head — hey 
up  there  —  g'lang  !  —  Clic,  clac,  petit  pos 
tilion!" 

And  then  away  goes  the  courier,  "  Meister 
Karl,"  rambling  as  only  a  very  young  man 
could,  through  the  books  he  has  read  and  the 
countries  he  has  visited :  jotting  down  his  im 
pressions  of  anything  and  everything  as  they 
occurred  to  him,  spring  in  his  heart,  —  the 


HANS    BREITMANN  329 

Carnival  in  Rome,  the  picturesqueness  of 
Nuremberg,  the  charm  of  the  "  beautiful 
cities  of  the  Past ;  "  telling  again  the  old 
stories  of  Flemish  Art,  Miraculous  Madon 
nas,  Ghosts,  Fairies,  whatever  came  into  his 
head  ;  as  much  at  home  meeting  the  devil  on 
a  church  steeple  at  midnight  as  calling  for 
beer  in  the  breweries  of  Munich  ;  always  ready 
for  a  laugh,  never  afraid  of  a  quotation.  The 
personal  appeals  to  the  reader  and  the  rhe 
torical  flights  were  literary  fashions  then  in 
vogue.  But  the  quotations  and  allusions  and 
the  use  he  made  of  them,  the  excursions  into 
the  grotesque  and  the  mystical,  were  all  his 
own,  and,  in  his  phrase,  "  caviare  to  the  pub 
lic."  It  might  be  as  natural  for  "  Meister 
Karl "  to  meet  fairies  and  spirits  in  his  travels 
as  for  Mr.  Howells  to  meet  men  and  women 
of  solid  flesh,  —  as  natural  to  lose  himself 
in  legend  as  for  Baedeker  to  hold  fast  to 
fact.  It  was  anything  but  natural,  however, 
to  the  public,  and  the  book  had  no  special 
success. 

One  pleasure  it  brought  the  author  was  a 
letter  from  Washington  Irving,  to  whom  he 
had  sent  a  copy.  A  letter  from  Washington 
Irving  was  to  the  young  American  author  of 


330  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

the  fifties  much  what  the  post-cards  of  Glad 
stone  became  to  the  young  English  author  at 
the  end  of  the  century,  —  I  am  afraid,  with 
no  better  reason.  "  I  trust  your  work  has  met 
with  a  wide  circulation,"  Irving  wrote  from 
Sunnyside,  on  May  31,  1856,  "for  such  it 
merits  by  its  raciness,  its  quaint  erudition,  its 
graphic  delineations,  its  veins  of  genuine 
poetry  and  true  Rabelais  humour.  To  me  it 
is  a  choice  book  to  have  at  hand  for  a  relish 
ing  morsel  occasionally,  like  a  Stilton  cheese 
or  a  pate  de  foie  gras?  But  he  had  written 
the  same  pretty  compliment  to  George  Tick- 
nor  a  few  years  before  about  Ticknor's  book 
on  Spain,  so  that  he  must  also  have  liked  to 
keep  by  him  a  stock  of  ready-made  phrases 
for  distribution  among  admiring  correspond 
ents.  Fortunately,  the  Rye,  who  never  got 
over  the  youthful  hero-worship  for  the  great 
man  of  the  older  generation,  was  spared  the 
disenchantment  of  discovery,  and  cherished 
the  illusion  that  the  compliment  was  personal 
until  the  end. 

Seventeen  years  after  his  first  appearance, 
"  Meister  Karl  "  suddenly  found  himself  fa 
mous  in  the  reflected  light  of  Hans  Breitmann, 
and  a  second  edition  of  the  "  Sketch-Book  " 


HANS    BREITMANN  331 

was  called  for.  The  American  publishers  now 
were  Peterson  Brothers  of  Philadelphia;  who 
the  "  Pooley  "  of  the  journal  was,  I  cannot 
say.  The  Petersons  seem  to  have  had  a 
rooted  objection  to  dates.  None  appears  on 
their  issue  nor,  as  they  sent  the  sheets  over  to 
Trlibner,  the  English  publisher,  in  the  Eng 
lish  edition.  It  is  only  from  the  journal  for 
1868  and  from  his  correspondence  that  I  con 
clude  the  date  of  publication  to  have  been  late 
in  1869  or  early  in  1870  for  America,  and  1872 
for  England.  Three  new  chapters  were  added, 
under  the  title  "  The  Morning  Land,"  and  the 
pleasure  to  the  author  this  time  was  the  praise 
of  Professor  Palmer,  probably  none  the  less 
sincere  because  Palmer  did  not  bother  to 
make  a  phrase  of  it.  He  found  "  all  the  East " 
in  the  new  chapters,  and  said  so  in  so  many 
words. 

When  the  "  Sketch-Book  "  was  published, 
some  critics  objected  to  it  as  an  imitation  of 
Heine,  though  the  Rye  had  not  read  a  word  of 
Heine  until  the  greater  part  of  it  was  writ 
ten.  By  the  time  it  was  finished,  however,  he 
had  not  only  read  but  translated  the  "  Pictures 
of  Travel "  and  the  "  Songs,"  and  the  transla 
tion  was  published  in  the  same  year,  1855. 


332  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

A  translation  could  not  better  preserve  the 
spirit  of  the  original.  There  is  none  of  the 
hurry  of  the  professional  translator,  measur 
ing  his  time  and  care  by  the  price  paid.  Had 
the  work  not  been  done  for  something  besides 
payment  in  money,  it  would  have  led  to  no 
thing  but  disappointment,  since  the  meagre 
seventy-five  cents  a  page  agreed  upon,  the 
Rye  says  in  his  "  Memoirs,"  was  never  paid 
him  in  full.  "  I  was  obliged  to  take  part  of 
the  money  in  engravings  and  books,  and  the 
publisher  failed.  The  book  passed  into  other 
hands,  and  many  thousands  of  copies  were 
sold,  from  all  of  which  I,  of  course,  got  no 
thing,"  —  nothing  except  his  pleasure  in  a 
congenial  task.  And  it  was  congenial,  for  he 
had  in  himself  something  of  the  same  com 
bination  of  seriousness  and  humour,  of  ten 
derness  and  "  drollery,"  that  attracted  him  to 
Heine;  he  was  as  familiar  with  German  as 
with  English,  as  entirely  master  of  its  "  fine 
shades,"  having  been  "  Germanised "  to  his 
fellow-citizens'  disgust,  even  before  he  set 
foot  in  Heidelberg  or  Munich ;  and  he  had 
the  deep  respect  for  the  original  text  that 
prevented  his  altering  or  omitting  a  line  or 
an  incident,  though,  at  a  more  mature  period, 


PROFESSOR  E.  li.  PALMER 


HANS   BREITMANN  333 

for  Mr.  Heinemann's  edition  (iSgi),1  he 
thought  it  wiser  to  make  certain  omissions. 
Whether  Heine  ever  saw  the  translation,  I  am 
not  sure,  but  he  heard  of  it  before  a  year  had 
passed ;  for  he  announced  its  appearance  as 
"  a  piece  of  good  news,"  in  a  letter  to  Calmann- 
Levy,  written  on  the  4th  of  October,  1855, 
crediting  New  York  instead  of  Philadelphia 
with  the  honour  of  having  produced  it.  1 1 "  has 
met  with  an  enormous  success,"  he  goes  on, 
"  according  to  a  correspondence  in  the  '  Augs- 
burger  Zeitung '  (which  does  not  love  me 
enough  to  invent  successes  for  me)."  He  was 
right  as  to  the  success.  The  few  enjoyed  the 
excellence  of  the  translation.  Thackeray,  who 
was  lecturing  in  America  the  year  it  was 
published,  kept  the  book  to  read  in  the  train 
between  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  and 
roared  over  it  all  the  way,  according  to  Bayard 
Taylor,  his  companion  on  the  occasion.  The 
many,  whatever  pleased  them  in  it,  liked  it  so 
well  that  it  went  into  edition  after  edition. 
The  eighth  had  already  been  reached  in 
1879,  the  date  of  the  first  copy  the  Rye  ever 

1  Mr.  Heinemann's  was,  of  course,  an  entirely  new  ven 
ture,  and  the  financial  conditions  had  nothing  to  do  with  those 
made  by  the  American  publishers  of  the  fifties. 


334  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

gave  me,  when  Schaefer  and  Koradi  of  Phil 
adelphia  were  the  publishers. 

After  "  Meister  Karl "  and  the  "  Pictures  of 
Travel,"  for  some  few  years  there  were  no 
books.  Rumours  of  war,  and,  finally,  war 
itself,  left  him  less  leisure  than  ever.  But  all 
the  while  he  was  full  of  schemes  that  gradu 
ally  took  definite  shape.  One  was  to  publish 
to  the  world  the  "  Gospel  of  Joyousness,"  as 
he  called  it,  in  which  his  faith  was  strong. 
At  no  period  of  his  life  would  he  permit  the 
luxury  of  woe  to  himself  or  to  anybody  else, 
and  the  moment  when  things  looked  blackest 
during  the  Civil  War  seemed  to  him  the  one, 
of  all  others,  when  a  protest  against  pessimism 
needed  to  be  made.  But  it  was  a  moment  of 
hurry  and  interruption,  and  this  one  of  his 
schemes  suffered  from  the  haste  with  which 
it  was  carried  out.  His  protest,  with  the  title 
"  Sunshine  in  Thought,"  was  published  in 
book  form  by  the  Putnams  in  New  York, 
1863.  "  It  was  all  directed,"  is  the  explanation 
in  the  "  Memoirs,"  "  against  tire  namby-pamby 
pessimism,  *  lost  Edens  and  buried  Lenores,' 
and  similar  weak  rubbish,  which  had  then 
begun  to  manifest  itself  in  literature,  and 
which  I  foresaw  was  in  future  to  become 


HANS   BREITMANN  335 

a  great  curse,  as  it  has  indeed  done."  His 
argument  was  based  on  his  belief,  that  grew 
with  the  years,  in  science  and  the  future  of 
greater  happiness  to  come  with  its  develop 
ment.  But  in  waiting,  the  present  evils  of 
despair  demanded  heroic  remedies,  and  he 
allowed  no  compromise,  including  even  Poe 
in  his  sweeping  denunciation.  In  calmer  mo 
ments  he  would  have  seen  reason  to  qualify 
many  of  his  criticisms.  The  book,  however, 
never  went  into  a  second  edition,  though  the 
first  was  limited  to  five  hundred  copies.  To 
me  it  is  the  least  satisfactory  of  his  works. 
The  indefiniteness  of  plan  weakens  the  argu 
ment.  He  was  too  eager  to  say  what  he  had 
to  say,  to  consider  how  he  said  it.  But  no 
body  interested  in  the  literature  of  the  Civil 
War  should  pass  it  over. 

To  this  literature  he  made  more  direct 
political  contributions, — ^two  pamphlets  of 
widespread  influence  in  their  day :  "  Central 
ization  versus  State  Rights"  (1863),  and  the 
same  year,  in  collaboration  with  his  brother 
Henry,  "  The  Book  of  Copperheads,"  found 
in  Lincoln's  desk  after  his  assassination,  to 
gether  with  the  "Letters  of  Petroleum  V. 
Nasby,"  by  D.  R.  Locke.  Lincoln's  copy  of 


336  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

the  "  Book  of  Copperheads,"  the  Rye  writes, 
in  the  "  Memoirs,"  "  was  sent  to  me  to  see  and 
return.  It  was  much  thumbed,  showing  that 
it  had  been  thoroughly  read  by  Father  Abra 
ham." 

Then,  literature  leading  the  American  who 
looked  to  it  for  support  into  all  sorts  of  queer 
by-paths,  he  wrote  for  Carleton,  a  New  York 
publisher,  a  little  volume  on  "  The  Art  of  Con 
versation"  (1863),  which  might  have  a  place 
on  the  collector's  shelves,  as  a  literary  curios 
ity,  alongside  of  Poe's  "  Manual  of  Conchol- 
ogy"  and  Hawthorne's  "Universal  History." 
I  have  a  copy,  —  a  thin  green-bound  book,  as 
uninviting  in  its  get-up  as  if  it  were  a  pill  that 
needed  no  sugar-coating,  but  abounding  in 
advice  by  which,  let  it  be  hoped,  the  nervous 
youth  of  half  a  century  ago  profited.  He  trans 
lated  from  the  German  of  Baron  J.  Von  Eich- 
endorff  the  "  Memoirs  of  a  Good-for-Nothing" 
(1866),  and  the  "German  Mother  Goose." 
He  made  a  volume,  partially  illustrating  it,  of 
his  own  nursery  rhymes,  "  Mother  Pitcher  " 
(Philadelphia,  Frederick  Leypoldt,  1864). 
The  verses,  written  for  the  amusement  of  his 
youngest  sister,  Emily,  now  Mrs.  John  Har 
rison,  have  a  very  personal  touch  in  his  se- 


HANS   BREITMANN  337 

lection  as  hero,  not  of  the  Slovenly  Peters  or 
Naughty  Fredericks  of  the  western  nursery, 
but  of  a  picturesque,  pig-tailed  little  Ping- 
Wing,  the  Pieman's  Son,  —  and  this  before 
the  Chino-Californian  had  dawned  upon 
American  fiction.  There  was  also  a  book  of 
"  Legends  of  the  Birds  "  (1864).  I  remember 
the  joy  it  gave  in  one  household,  and  I  can 
still  recall  the  thin  quarto,  with  the  little 
bird  in  the  middle  of  a  gold  and  white  cover, 
though  it  was  read  out  of  existence  years  ago, 
and  I  have  never  seen  another  copy  since. 
The  verses,  however,  were  eventually  re 
printed  in  the  "  Music  Lesson  of  Confucius." 

These  books,  except  "Mother  Pitcher," 
were  undertaken  and  written  deliberately  for 
publication.  But,  all  the  while,  the  work  des 
tined  to  bring  him  fame  was  being  dashed 
off  at  odd  hours,  anyhow,  just  for  fun,  to 
fill  up  a  letter  to  a  friend,  or  a  corner  in  a 
paper  or  magazine  just  as  it  was  going  to 
press.  For  this  was  the  origin  of  the  "  Breit- 
mann  Ballads." 

I  have  heard  it  said  that  the  "younger 
generation"  does  not  read  the  "  Breitmann 
Ballads."  But,  for  all  that,  Breitmann  has 
in  him  the  stuff  that  endures,  the  stuff  that 


338  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

ensured  his  success  from  the  start,  though  to 
us,  looking  back,  the  moment  of  his  appear 
ance  seems  one  when  Americans  could  have 
had  least  time  or  inclination  to  try  what  Dr. 
Holmes  once  described  as  the  "  Breitmann 
cure."  For  the  first  Ballad  was  written  in 
1856,  the  first  complete  collection  was  pub 
lished  in  1870.  Therefore,  the  earliest  and 
gayest  verses  cover  the  period  when  the 
national  self-consciousness,  always  alert,  had 
reached  its  most  acute  stage,  when  the  coun 
try  was  engrossed  in  its  own  affairs  as  it  had 
never  been  before,  as  pray  Heaven  it  may 
never  be  again.  Hans  Breitmann  reflected 
nothing  American,  he  satirised  nothing  Amer 
ican.  Anything  more  unlike  that  long,  thin, 
lank,  nervous,  almost  ascetic  Uncle  Sam  Amer 
ica  has  evolved  as  its  national  type,  could  not 
well  be  imagined  than  the  big,  fat,  easy-going, 
beer-drinking,  pleasure-loving  German  who 
was  the  hero  of  the  "  Ballads."  He  was  not  of 
the  soil,  as  were  Parson  Wilbur,  and  Hosea 
Biglow,  and  the  others  who  roused  the  laugh 
ter  of  over-wrought  patriotism*  He  was  not 
even  Pennsylvania  Dutch,  as  critics  who  had 
never  set  foot  in  Pennsylvania  were  so  ready 
to  assert.  He  was  in  every  sense  an  alien ;  by 


HANS   BREITMANN  339 

birth,  in  his  language, —  which  was  not  Penn 
sylvania  Dutch  either,  whatever  the  critics 
might  call  it,  —  in  his  thoughts,  his  habits, 
his  ideals.  No  figure  could  have  been  more 
unlocked  for  in  American  literature,  up  till 
then  so  intensely  national  in  character  —  or 
"provincial,"  I  can  fancy  Mr.  Henry  James 
correcting  me.  Only  now  and  then  had  a  rare 
poet  like  Poe  evaded  this  national  respon 
sibility,  and  concerned  himself  with  beauty 
alone.  But  Poe  had  been  the  exception.  The 
typical  American  of  letters  —  if  genius  can 
be  typical  —  was  Hawthorne,  in  whose  prose, 
as  in  Lowell's  verse,  the  American,  the  New 
England  inspiration  cannot  be  forgotten  for 
a  minute. 

Were  it  known  of  the  author  of  the  "  Bal 
lads  "  only  that  he  was  a  Philadelphian  who, 
during  those  eventful  years,  worked  as  hard 
for  his  country  as  a  man  whose  business  it 
was  to  write  could,  the  fact  of  his  having 
created  Breitmann  then,  or  indeed  at  any 
other  period,  might  seem  as  extraordinary. 
But  a  great  deal  more  is  known,  and  in  this 
knowledge  lies  the  explanation.  To  be  told 
what  a  man  laughs  at  is  to  be  told  what  that 
man  is,  according  to  an  old  saying,  almost 


340   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

too  hackneyed  to  quote,  certainly  more  hack 
neyed  than  it  deserves  to  be.  For  it  is  quite 
as  true  that  to  be  told  what  a  man  is,  is  to  be 
told  what  he  will  laugh  at.  Charles  Godfrey 
Leland  being  what  he  was,  Hans  Breitmann 
follows  as  a  matter  of  course.  Really,  if  for 
no  better  reason,  I  might  recommend  the 
study  of  Breitmann  to  the  "  younger  gener 
ation  "  as  a  human  document  of  uncommon 
interest. 

As  I  have  shown,  when  his  country  needed 
him,  the  Rye  was  entirely  at  his  country's  ser 
vice,  though  all  the  time  his  real  life  was  in 
a  world  of  thought  far  removed  from  the 
practical  affairs  of  America.  It  was  his  ambi 
tion  to  climb  the  heights  of  mysticism  and 
romance.  Certainly,  no  sooner  did  freedom 
come  with  his  later  years  than  he  started 
straight  away  adventuring  with  Gypsies  and 
witches,  studying  sorcery,  wrestling  with  prob 
lems  of  will  and  sex.  But  for  the  time,  Fate 
had  drawn  him  deep  down  into  the  whirlpool 
of  fact.  To  make  up  for  it,  however,  Fate  had 
endowed  him  with  a  sense  of  humour,  and  he 
was  the  first  to  laugh  at  the  absurd  contrast 
between  the  philosopher  that  would  be  and 
the  man  of  practical  affairs  that  was.  When 


HANS   BREITMANN  341 

he  shaped  this  laughter  into  words,  the  result 
was,  naturally,  Breitmann ;  that  is,  the  Ger 
man,  with  his  head  in  the  heavens  of  philoso 
phy  and  his  feet  in  the  ditch  of  necessity, 
spouting  pure  reason  over  his  beer-mug,  drop 
ping  the  tears  of  sentiment  on  his  sausage 
and  sauerkraut. 

Breitmann  "  flashed  into  being,"  as  Hen 
ley  says  of  Panurge.  How  spontaneous  was 
the  laugh  from  which  he  sprang,  the  history 
of  the  early  "  Ballads  "  and  the  character  of 
Breitmann  himself  go  far  to  prove.  The  his 
tory  I  am  able  to  give  with  details  never 
before  published.  It  was  partly  told  in  the 
author's  prefaces  to  the  editions  of  1871 
and  1889.  But  further  facts  are  supplied  by 
the  author's  marginal  notes  in  his  copies  of 
these  two  editions,  now  in  my  possession.  I 
read  chance  throughout  —  the  chance  there 
is  in  any  laugh  that  rings  true.  To  begin 
with,  it  was  the  language  that  made  Breit 
mann  and  not  Breitmann  who  made  the  lan 
guage.  For  Breitmann  did  not  appear  until 
one  at  least  of  the  "  Ballads  "  that  now  go  by 
his  name  had  got  to  the  point  of  being  printed. 
"  *  Der  Freischlitz '  was  written  before  '  Hans 
Breitmann's  Barty,' "  is  the  note  on  a  slip  of 


342  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

paper  inserted  in  the  copy  of  the  1871  edition 
open  before  me,  "  one  season  when  a  German 
troupe  was  playing  at  the  Opera  House  in 
Philadelphia.  It  was  first  published  in  the 
*  Philadelphia  Evening  Bulletin,'  —  of  which 
paper  I  was  one  of  the  editors.  I  subsequently 
republished  it  in  '  Graham's  Magazine,'  with 
a  small  wood-cut,  not  larger  than  an  English 
shilling,  before  each  verse.  These  cuts  were 
very  clear  and  were  executed  by  an  engraver 
named  Scattergood.  *  Der  Freischiitz '  was 
one  of  several  burlesque  opera  librettos  which 
I  wrote.  They  all  had  a  great  run  through 
the  newspapers.  *  Der  Freischiitz '  was  espe 
cially  popular,  but  when  published  in  a  work 
with  the  rest  of  the  *  Breitmann  Ballads,'  the 
reviews  declared  it  to  be  much  inferior  to  any 
of  the  others." 

And  yet  of  all  these  burlesques,  "Der 
Freischiitz  "  alone  has  lived.  Only  one  be 
sides  have  I  found  even  among  my  uncle's 
papers,  "La  Sonnambula,"  a  little  pamphlet 
with  a  title  designed  by  him.  Of  the  re 
maining  numbers  in  the  series,  I  doubt  if  a 
trace  could  be  discovered  by  the  most  ardent 
collector.  "  Der  Freischiitz  "  would  probably 
have  gone  with  the  rest,  if,  to  add  to  the 


HANS   BREITMANN  343 

parody,  it  had  not  been  put  into  the  English 
of  the  German  unfamiliar  with  the  grammar 
and  construction  of  the  language.  To  the 
hard-worked  journalist,  subject  and  language 
both  must  have  brought  some  charm  of  the 
old  Heidelberg  and  Munich  days,  for  once 
tried,  it  pleased  him  so  well  that  he  tried  it 
again  before  that  same  year  had  come  to  an 
end. 

Hans  Breitmann  gife  a  barty ; 
Vhere  ish  dot  barty  now  ? 

I  do  not  believe  aay  lines  by  an  Ameri 
can —  not  the  sayings  of  "John  P.  Robin 
son,  he  "  nor  the  "  Excelsior  "  of  Longfellow's 
model  youth,  nor  the  catchwords  of  the 
"  Heathen  Chinee  "  and  "  Little  Breeches  "  — 
were  ever  so  bandied  about  from  mouth  to 
mouth,  so  quoted,  so  used,  so  abused.  In  all 
likelihood,  the  "younger  generation"  that 
never  heard  of  Breitmann  has  been  loudest 
in  asking,  "Vhere  ish  dot  barty  now?"  And 
yet,  no  lines  were  ever  less  premeditated,  ever 
more  wholly  the  result  of  chance.  "While 
editing  '  Graham's  Magazine '  I  had  one  day 
a  space  to  fill,"  their  author  says  in  his  "  Me 
moirs,"  as  he  had  already  written  in  his  copy 
of  the  1871  edition.  "  In  a  hurry  I  knocked 


344  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

off  '  Hans  Breitmann's  Barty '  (1856).  I  gave 
it  no  thought  whatever.  Soon  after,  Clark 
republished  it  in  the  '  Knickerbocker,' saying 
that  it  was  evidently  by  me.  I  little  dreamed 
that  in  days  to  come  I  should  be  asked  in 
Egypt,  and  on  the  blue  Mediterranean,  and  in 
every  country  in  Europe,  if  I  was  its  author." 
"  It  was  written  only  to  fill  up  a  page,"  the 
note  in  the  1889  edition  says,  "and  I  never 
expected  that  any  one  would  notice  it." 

He  thought  so  little  of  it  that  in  the 
"  Ballads  "  immediately  following  the  "  Barty," 
Breitmann  was  left  out  as  often  as  not  The 
real  link  at  first  was  the  language,  though 
nothing  was  further  from  his  intention  than 
that  there  should  be  any  link  of  any  kind. 
For,  to  quote  again  from  the  unpublished 
notes,  "  The  Love  Song,  '  O,  vere  mine  lofe 
a  sugar-powl,'  was  composed,  the  first  two 
verses,  one  night  in  Philadelphia  after  going 
to  bed.  It  was  with  a  great  effort  that  I  rose 
and  wrote  them  down.  I  lived  at  the  time 
at  Mrs.  Sandgren's  in  Spruce  Street."  The 
ballad  of  "  De  Maiden  mit  Nodings  on "  was 
"composed  while  sitting  in  a  railway  carriage, 
I  think  in  Ohio,  in  1864.  I  carried  it  for  a 
year  or  more  in  my  memory  before  I  wrote  it 


HANS   BREITMANN  345 

down."  "  Wein  Geist "  was  written  in  a  letter 
to  Miss  D.  L.  Colton  to  show  "  that  it  was 
easier  to  write  such  rhymes  than  prose,"  just 
as  a  few  years  later  "  Breitmann  in  Rome  "  was 
written  in  that  city  for  Miss  Edith  Story ; 
"  Schnitzerl's  Philosopede  "  was  "  the  result 
of  a  suggestion  of  John  Forney,  Jun."  The 
story  of  Fritzerl  Schnall  "  was  told  to  me  by 
General  Schenck,  American  Minister  in  Lon 
don.  When  I  first  met  him  he  avoided  con 
versation  more  than  once,  but  when  he  was 
at  leisure  he  came  to  me  and  said :  '  I  did  n't 
speak  because  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you  at 
leisure.  I  Ve  got  a  first-rate  story  which  I  've 

tbeen  saving  up  for  you  these  three  weeks  ; 
I  expected  to  meet  you  in  London.'  Then  we 
had  a  long  conversation."  "  With  the  excep 
tion  of  the  *  Barty,'  most  of  the  poems  in  the 
first  edition  were  written  merely  to  fill  up 
letters  to  Charles  Astor  Bristed,"  a  fellow 
journalist  living  in  New  York. 

But  if  Breitmann  was  an  accident,  it  was  an 
accident  that  could  have  happened  to  no  other 
man.  As  the  picture  painted  in  a  few  days 
represents  the  knowledge  of  a  lifetime,  so  the 
"  Ballads,"  apparently  knocked  off  anyhow, 
were  the  outcome  of  a  long  apprenticeship  of 


346  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

study  and  travel  and  experience.  Otherwise 
they  would  never  have  developed  into  a  great 
Breitmann  myth.  The  language  alone  could 
not  have  ensured  their  survival.  It  was  clever 
—  uncouth  in  itself,  but  pliant  and  rhythmical 
as  he  wrote  it.  And  it  was  real,  not  an  inven 
tion.  He  had  the  sense  to  realise  that  not 
only  would  no  two  Germans,  new  to  English, 
speak  it  alike,  but  that  "  no  one  individual  is 
invariably  consistent  in  his  errors  or  inaccu 
racies.  Every  reader  who  knows  any  foreign 
language  imperfectly  is  aware  that  he  speaks 
it  better  at  one  time  than  another,  and  it  would 
consequently  have  been  a  grave  error  to  re 
duce  the  broken  and  irregular  jargon  of  the 
book  to  a  fixed  and  regular  language."  To 
the  picturesqueness  of  Breitmann's  English, 
his  experiments  in  other  tongues  contributed 
so  flamboyantly  that  Octave  Delapier,  the 
authority  who  had  defined  macaronics  as 
"the  extravagance  of  poetry,"  pronounced 
Breitmann's  "  Interview  with  the  Pope  "  to 
be  one  of  the  finest  examples.  If  extrava 
gance  depends  on  recklessness  or  first-rate 
badness,  then,  "from  this  point  of  view,"  the 
author  honestly  admits,  "it  is  possible  that 
Breitmann's  Latin  lyric  is  not  devoid  of 


HANS   BREITMANN  347 

merit,  since  assuredly  nobody  ever  wrote  a 


worse." 


But  macaronics  are  for  the  few.  For  the 
many,  the  cleverness  of  the  German-English 
would  have  been  no  attraction,  would,  on  the 
contrary,  have  been  a  drawback,  the  many 
finding  it  quite  hard  enough  work  to  read  at 
all,  without  the  additional  labour  of  consult 
ing  a  glossary.  Even  the  down-east  Yankee 
dialect  would  have  made  Hosea  Biglow  im 
possible,  if  Hosea  Biglow  had  not  had  some 
thing  to  say  that  people  wanted  to  hear.  Breit- 
mann,  too,  had  something  to  say,  something 
that  neither  he  nor  his  author  could  have 
said  as  expressively  in  any  other  way.  For 
the  language  was  absolutely  a  part  of  Breit- 
mann.  He  did  not  talk  his  broken  English 
just  because  it  was  funny  and  to  raise  a  laugh, 
but  because  only  the  man  who  talked  it  could 
have  been  what  he  was.  Moreover,  like  all 
popular  types,  from  Macchus,  through  the 
innumerable  Pulcinellos  and  Pierrots,  Harle 
quins  and  Pantaloons  of  centuries,  Breitmann 
had  in  him  the  elements  of  human  nature. 
Broad  caricature  there  might  be ;  never  was 
there  a  popular  type  without  it.  But  he  was 
a  man,  and  a  very  real  man  - —  if  with  an  un- 


348  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

usual  thirst  and  "  the  heroic  manner."  He 
lived  in  the  "  Ballads ;  "  that  is  why  the  "  Bal 
lads  "  have  lived. 

What  the  author  saw  in  him,  as  he  grad 
ually  grew  into  a  definite,  substantial  person 
ality,  is  plainly  stated  in  the  author's  Preface 
to  the  English  edition,  1871.  "  Breitmann  is 
one  of  the  battered  types  of  the  men  of  '48  - 
a  person  whose  education  more  than  his  heart 
has  in  every  way  led  him  to  entire  scepticism 
or  indifference,  and  one  whose  Lutheranism 
does  not  go  beyond  Wein,  Weib  und  Gesang. 
Beneath  his  unlimited  faith  in  pleasure  lie 
natural  shrewdness,  an  excellent  early  educa 
tion,  and  certain  principles  of  honesty  and 
good  fellowship,  which  are  all  the  more  clearly 
defined  from  his  moral  looseness  in  details 
identified  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind  with  total 
depravity."  But  the  rest  of  that  description 
is  in  the  Preface  for  any  one  to  read.  I  would 
rather  give,  instead,  an  extract  from  a  letter 
to  me,  that  no  one  else  has  read,  and  that 
sums  up  the  character  not  only  of  Breitmann, 
but  of  the  whole  Breitmann  myth.  The  letter 
was  written  from  Brighton  in  1885,  when  the 
Rye  was  very  keen  to  bring  out  an  illustrated 
edition  and  have  my  husband  do  the  illustra- 


HANS   BREITMANN  349 

tions.  "  There  is  an  opportunity  for  a  wide 
range  in  the  book  —  brave  battles  —  the  death 
of  Von  Stossenheim  —  a  kind  of  heroic  and 
romantic  grandeur  combined  with  German 
naivete  and  rowdyism.  The  book  is  really  a 
mixture  of  great  elements  with  small  ones, 
and  good  illustrations  would  set  this  forth 
and  raise  it  to  its  proper  level.  Breitmann  is 
really  a  ferocious,  tremendous  old  warrior  — 
an  Eulenspiegel  who  can  kill  a  wolf  easily 
enough  on  occasion." 

Had  the  "  Ballads,"  like  the  "  Biglow  Pa 
pers,"  been  intended  to  convey  a  moral  satire 
or  preach  a  patriotic  sermon,  Breitmann  would 
have  been  intolerable  to  Americans;  they 
could  not  have  stood  the  cynical  indiffer 
ence  with  which  he  drank  and  rioted  his  way 
through  scenes  and  events  so  little  of  a  laugh 
ing  matter  to  them.  But  the  beauty  of  Breit 
mann  was,  that  he  was  not  an  American. 
They  could  laugh  at  him,  to  relieve  the  strain, 
without  the  shadow  of  reproach  —  could  watch 
him  play  his  part  in  the  great  national  drama, 
and  still  laugh  —  "  the  laughter  which  blends 
with  tears."  Besides,  in  no  native  adventurer 
would  there  have  been  the  mixture  of  "philoso 
phy  and  sentiment,  beer,  music,  and  romance" 


350  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

that  made  it  possible  for  one  American  in 
particular,  with  his  German  training  and  tra 
ditions,  to  laugh  a  little  at  himself  as  he 
laughed  with  Breitmann.  The  native  adven 
turer  would  have  left  sentiment  at  home  when 
he  went  looting;  he  could  not  have  drunk 
his  beer  to  the  murmur  of  metaphysics,  nor 
searched  for  contraband  whiskey  to  the  sym 
phonies  of  Beethoven,  nor  played  the  game 
of  politics  on  the  romantic  stage.  He  might, 
I  do  not  deny,  have  got  "  troonk  ash  bigs  "  at 
his  own  or  any  other  man's  Barty.  But  only 
the  German  could  have  moralized  at  the  end 
of  the  orgy,  — 

Hans  Breitmann  gif e  a  barty  — 

Vhere  ish  dot  barty  now  ? 
Vhere  ish  de  lofely  golden  cloud 

Dat  float  on  de  moundain's  prow  ? 
Vhere  ish  de  himmelstrahlende  stern  — 

De  shtar  of  de  shpirit's  light  ? 
All  goned  afay  mit  de  lager  beer  — 

Afay  in  de  ewigkeit ! 

An  American  in  the  role  of  "  Bummer " 
may  not  be  inconceivable,  but  no  one  could 
believe  in  the  American  "  Bummer "  who 
read  Fichte,  and  speculated  as  to  whether 

De  human  souls  of  beoples 
Exisdt  in  deir  idees  — 


HANS  BREITMANN  351 

or  argued 

....  if  dis  couldt,  shouldt  hafe  peen 
Dat  vouldt,  mighdt  peen  a  ghosdt ; 
Boot  if  id  pe  nouomenon 
Phenomenoned  indeed, 
Or  de  soobyectif  objectified, 

and  so  into  deeper  depths.  But  speculation 
and  argument  were  as  much  a  habit  with  the 
German  "  Bummer  "  as  his  beer  and  his  pipe 
—  that  is  what  redeems  him  from  animalism. 
There  is  no  humour  in  mere  brutality.  Breit- 
mann,  being  a  German,  could  drink  himself 
drunk  on  the  battlefield  :  — 

Gotts !  vot  a  shpree  der  Breitmann  had 

Vhile  yet  his  hand  was  red, 
A  trinkin'  lager  from  his  poots 

Among  de  repel  tead, 

but  drunk,  he  could  touch  the  skies.  His 
inspiration  might  be  Schnaps  — 

De  schmell  voke  oop  de  boetry  — 

but  inspired,  he  could  burst  into  lyrical  song : 

Ash  sommer  pring  de  roses 

Und  roses  pring  de  dew, 
So  Deutschland  gifes  de  maidens 

Who  fetch  de  bier  for  you. 
Komm  Maidelein  !  rothe  Waengelein ! 

Mit  wein-glass  in  your  paw ! 
Ve  '11  get  troonk  among  de  roses 

Und  pe  soper  on  de  shtraw ! 


352  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

He  might  be  the  most  inveterate  looter  in 
the  train  of  a  great  army,  but  let  the  organ 
peal  out 

crate  dings  from  Mozart, 
Beethoven  und  Me'hul, 
Mit  chorals  of  Sebastian  Bach 
Sooplime  und  peaudiful, 

and  he  was  feeling  "  like  holy  saints,"  and  the 
tears  running  down  his  face,  while  he  and 
his  men,  "droonk  as  blitz"  on  contraband 
whiskey, 

singed  ash  if  mit  singin',  dey 
Might  indo  Himmel  win. 

Whatever  Breitmann  did, 

He  dinked  and  dinked  so  heafy 
Ash  only  Deutschers  can. 

Wherever  he  journeyed,  he  was  sure  to  be 

A  vorkin'  out  life's  mission  here 

Soobyectifly  und  grand. 
Some  beoblesh  runs  de  beautiful, 

Some  vorks  philosophic; 
Der  Breitmann  solfe  de  infinide 

Ash  von  eternal  shpree. 

A  vagabond  of  vagabonds,  rollicking  from 
adventure  to  adventure  like  the  hero  of 
the  old  picaresque  novel,  he  was  a  German 
through  it  all ;  the  feeling  of  romance  young 
in  his  heart,  his  soul  susceptible  to  the  sound 


HANS   BREITMANN  353 

of  music  or  the  summons  of  sentiment,  the 
pathos  lying  very  close  to  the  humour,  and 
poetry  in  the  laughter.  "  When  he  is  dream 
ing  over  the  beautiful  things  that  have 
touched  him  in  the  past,  or  at  music,  or 
giving  advice  to  the  young,  —  in  these  moods, 
he  says  things  which  place  him  with  the 
poets,"  one  of  his  critics,  Mr.  John  Masefield, 
writes.  "  I  have  a  letter  from  Dr.  O.  W. 
Holmes  in  which  he  says  that  the  death  of 
Von  Stossenheim  drew  two  long-tailed  tears 
from  his  eyes,"  is  a  note  written  on  the  mar 
gin  of  Breitmann's  "  Going  to  Church,"  while 
George  Boker's  admiration  for  a  special  verse 
in  the  same  poem  —  beginning  "  All  rosen 
red  de  mornin'  fair  "  —  is  recorded  in  another 
marginal  note.  And  Breitmann's  thoughts 
were  ever  soaring  so  to  the  Infinite,  so  many 
tags  of  old  verse  and  bits  of  old  legend  were 
ever  running  through  his  head,  that  only  those 
familiar  with  German  philosophy  and  litera 
ture  appreciate  the  learning  crammed  into 
what,  to  the  casual  reader,  seems  mere  "  comic 
verse."  Between  his  vagabondage  and  his 
philosophy,  with  his  "  ripe  talent  for  events, 
Breitmann  could  never  seem  out  of  the  pic 
ture,"  no  matter  where  the  chaotic  times 


354  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  ' 

might  send  him,  whether  to  fight  the  battles 
of  the  North,  when  a  certain  Jost  in  the  Penn 
sylvania  Cavalry  served  as  prototype,  whether 
oil-prospecting  in  guerilla-swept  Tennessee, 
or  rent-collecting  in  the  wilds  of  West  Vir 
ginia,  or  off  on  a  great  railroad-advertising 
excursion  to  Kansas  and  the  then  furthermost 
frontier  of  civilisation,  among  Indians  and 
buffaloes.  Many  touches  of  autobiography 
are  in  the  "  Ballads  "  for  any  one  who  can 
read  between  the  lines. 

If  Breitmann's  "  well-balanced  mixture  of 
stoicism  and  epicurism  "  was  peculiarly  Teu 
tonic,  he  was  so  human,  such  a  good  fel 
low,  so  gay  in  his  endurance  as  in  his  excesses, 
that  every  American  could  understand  the 
man  himself,  while  his  humour  was  of  a  kind 
that  every  American  could  enjoy,  without  the 
discomfort  there  sometimes  was  in  laugh 
ing  at  Hosea  Biglow.  And  so,  though  Breit 
mann's  creator  thought  little  of  him,  other 
people,  fortunately,  began  to  think  a  great 
deal.  The  public  became  conscious  of  the 
existence  of  this  big,  jolly  German  with  his 
unquenchable  thirst  and  irrepressible  good 
spirits,  and  were  on  the  look-out  for  his  re 
appearance.  Letters  containing  the  "Bal- 


HANS   BREITMANN  355 

lads "  were  preserved  by  the  friends  lucky 
enough  to  have  received  them,  especially  by 
Bristed,  who,  after  sending  his  to  a  sporting 
paper,  tried  to  surprise  the  author  with  a  pri 
vately  printed  collection.  The  attempt  failed. 
The  "  Ballads  "  might  never  have  appeared 
at  all,  their  author  says  in  his  preface  to  the 
1871  edition,  "had  not  Ringwalt,  my  collab 
orator  on  the  *  Philadelphia  Press,'  and  also 
a  printer,  had  such  faith  in  the  work  as  to 
have  it '  set  up '  in  his  office,  offering  to  try 
an  edition  for  me.  This  was  transferred  to 
Peterson  Brothers."  In  a  correspondence  of 
a  much  later  date,  I  have  come  upon  a  letter, 
(March  10,  1896),  from  an  old  friend  on  the 
"  Press,"  who  tells  an  amusing  story,  never 
as  yet  published,  of  this  printing.  "  I  recall," 
he  says,  "  one  curious  incident  that  might  be 
worth  putting  into  your  second  volume  of 
'  Memoirs/  In  the  '  Breitmann  Ballads '  the 
compositors  frequently  made  mistakes  in  set 
ting  up  the  German  patois,  and  you  would 
consider  with  respect  their  errors,  whether 
or  not  to  adopt  them.  I  recollect  your  fre 
quently  consulting  me  on  such  points,  and  we 
would  weigh  the  merits  or  demerits  of  their 
slips  —  or  involuntary  scholarship  "  —  very 


356  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

much  as  the  Rye  had  weighed  the  same  ques 
tion  for  Artemus  Ward  in  the  old  New  York 
days. 

Thus  Breitmann  was  a  creature  of  chance 
in  every  sense.  But  when  he  achieved  the  dig 
nity  of  publication  in  book  form,  he  took  the 
world  by  storm.  His  success  was  immediate 
and  enormous.  The  Petersons,  uncertain,  I 
suppose,  as  to  his  reception,  had  begun  tim 
idly  by  issuing  the  "  Ballads  "  in  Parts.  But 
the  First  was  quickly  followed  by  Second, 
Third,  Fourth,  Fifth.  I  have  said  that  the 
publishers,  one  of  the  old,  highly  respect 
able  firms  of  my  native  town,  showed  small 
consideration  for  future  collectors  and  bib 
liographers.  There  is  no  date  on  the  title- 
pages.  But  from  the  year  of  the  copyright 
entry,  contemporary  letters,  and  the  date  of 
the  first  English  edition,  I  know  that  the 
"Ballads"  were  published  in  1869,  in  the 
little  paper-covered  "  Parts,"  of  which,  to  my 
sorrow,  odd  numbers  only  have  survived 
in  the  somewhat  chaotic  Breitmann  collec 
tion  I  have  been  able  to  make  from  the 
books  and  papers  left  by  my  uncle  to  my 
care.  In  1871,  the  five  Parts  were  collected 
into  a  fat,  solid,  substantially  bound  volume. 


HANS   BREITMANN  357 

Before  this,  the  separate  Parts  had  gone  to 
England.  The  only  copy  I  have  seen  of 
the  First,  as  there  published,  is  already  in 
the  "  Eighth  Revised  Edition,"  though  the 
date  is  still  1869,  —  a  proof  that  Breitmann 
"flashed"  into  popularity  as  into  being. 
Triibner,  who  went  to  the  trouble  of  writing 
an  Introduction  and  extending  the  Glossary, 
was  the  authorised  English  publisher,  as  is 
distinctly  stated  in  a  note  signed  "  Charles 
Godfrey  Leland  "  and  dated  "  Philadelphia, 
1869."  But  this  made  no  difference  to 
English  publishers  when  virtuous  objection 
to  piracy  meant  loss  to  themselves.  Two 
pirated  editions  appeared  in  the  same  year. 
One  of  the  pirates,  in  a  letter  now  among 
my  Breitmann.  papers,  suggested  that  the 
"  Ballads  "  should  be  his  because  he  was  the 
first  English  publisher  of  the  "  Biglow  Pa 
pers,"  though  what  Lowell  thought  of  him  in 
that  capacity  he  did  not  trouble  to  explain. 
Both  these  editions  amiably  presented  Breit 
mann  with  a  ballad  he  could  not  have  claimed 
had  he  wanted  to,  and  both  published  an  In 
troduction  that  almost  reconciles  me  to-day 
to  the  piracy,  for,  in  accounting  for  Breit 
mann,  it  explains  that  "  already  the  English 


358  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

language  in  America  has  become  to  some 
extent  Germanised.  Thus,  all  the  familiar 
words  in  German  speech,  the  questions  and 
answers  of  every-day  life  and  the  names  of 
common  objects,  are  as  well  known  and  re 
cognised  among  all  classes  throughout  the 
Union  as  the  coins  of  Prussia  and  Austria 
are  current  and  acceptable  tender ; "  and  I 
have  no  doubt  the  Englishman,  upon  whom 
it  had  not  dawned  that  complete  ignorance 
of  everything  American  might  turn  out  a 
bad  investment,  closed  the  book  confirmed 
in  his  disdain  of  a  country  where  people 
talked  such  barbarous  English. 

In  England,  then,  as  in  America,  Breit- 
mann  went  into  edition  after  edition,  in 
"Parts"  and  "Complete."  When  the  Rye 
arrived  in  London,  he  was  received  as  Hans 
Breitmann ;  the  "  one  thorn  in  his  cushion," 
for  he  resented  nothing  so  much  as  being 
identified  with  the  disreputable' old  adven 
turer  who  was  no  more  like  him  than  the 
Heathen  Chinee  was  like  Bret  Harte.  "  Breit 
mann  has  become  my  autocrat  who  rules 
me  with  a  rod  of  iron  and  has  imposed  his 
accursed  name  on  me  —  and  thou  helpest 
him ! "  he  wrote  as  late  as  1895  to  Mr.  Fisher 


HANS   BREITMANN  359 

Unwin,  who  had  published  his  photograph, 
and  labelled  it  "  Hans  Breitmann,"  in  a  little 
volume  called  "  Good  Reading."  And  I  re 
member  his  disgust,  at  much  the  same  period, 
when  the  editors  of  a  magazine  objected  to 
his  choice  of  the  photograph  of  himself  for 
which  they  had  asked  him :  "  I  suppose  they 
want  a  Hans  Breitmann  with  a  beer-mug ! " 
Other  lesser  drawbacks  there  were,  too,  in  the 
first  days  of  Breitmann's  English  triumph.  It 
might  be  a  compliment  to  have  the  name  ap 
pear  on  the  popular  stage,  and  the  "  Ballads  " 
set  to  music  and  dedicated  to  popular  clubs, 
and  the  name  given  to  cigars.  But  it  was  an 
other  matter  when  the  flattery  of  imitation  was 
carried  to  such  a  point  that  name,  language, 
and  all  were  appropriated.  "  I  have  a  curious 
little  pamphlet  called  '  De  Gospel  according 
to  Saint  Breitmann  '  ( 1871 ),  the  first  number 
in  a  series  of  *  Ramequins  '  by  Cullen  Morfe  " 
—  of  whom  and  his  "  Ramequins "  I  know 
no  more,  and,  taking  this  number  as  a  sam 
ple,  I  think  it  likely  that  more  is  not  worth 
knowing.  I  have  also  the  second  and  third 
numbers  of  a  paper  called  "  Hans  Breitmann," 
a  weekly  after  the  pattern  of  "  Punch,"  started 
in  the  same  year  (1871) ;  poor  stuff  as  I  try  to 


360  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

read  it  now,  but  for  the  moment  threatening 
serious  consequences,  —  critics  of  the  time, 
who  were  too  obtuse  to  distinguish  between 
the  real  and  the  sham,  declaring  that  the  joke 
was  being  carried  beyond  patience,  that  the 
British  public  was  not  going  to  stand  a  sur 
feit  even  of  Hans  Breitmann,  and  that  "  Mr. 
Leland  might  as  well  know  it ; "  and  to  Mr. 
Leland,  Trlibner,  in  a  panic,  sent  one  of  these 
criticisms  post  haste.  "It  is  written  in  such 
a  nasty  spirit,"  the  letter  accompanying  it 
says,  "  that  I  think  you  should  not  pass  it 
over  in  silence.  As  the  continued  identifica 
tion  of  your  name  with  the  Hans  Breitmann 
periodical,  which,  in  its  last  number,  is  ex 
ceedingly  weak  and  shallow,  could  possibly 
damage  you,  will  you  not  publicly  disclaim 
all  connection  with  it,  perhaps  in  a  letter  to 
the  *  Athenaeum  '  ?  " 

I  am  not  sure  if  the  letter  was  written,  but 
Triibner's  panic  seems  the  less  necessary  in 
the  face  of  other  and  worse  things  Breitmann 
had  to  face,  —  the  indignation  of  Germany, 
for  instance,  and  the  praise  of  France.  It  was 
his  exploit  as  Uhlan,  included  in  the  1871 
complete  edition  of  the  "  Ballads,"  that  roused 
Germany's  indignation.  "  This  poem,"  says 


HANS   BREITMANN  361 

one  of  those  little  marginal  notes  that  are 
invaluable  in  the  authentic  history  of  Breit- 
mann,  —  "  this  poem  gave  offence  to  many 
Germans,  even  to  those  who  had  been  in  the 
war.  They  were  under  far  stronger  discipline 
than  in  America,  where  they  were  the  most 
outrageous  plunderers  and  rioters  of  either 
side  in  the  Civil  War."  But  no  offence  was 
meant,  the  author's  Preface  in  1871  protests. 
"  It  is  needless,  perhaps,  to  say  that  I  no  more 
intended  to  ridicule  or  satirise  the  German 
cause  or  the  German  method  of  making  war 
.  .  .  than  I  did  those  of  the  American  Union, 
when  I  first  introduced  Breitmann  as  a  '  Bum 
mer  '  plundering  the  South."  However,  most 
people,  if  they  must  be  laughed  at,  would 
rather  do  the  laughing  themselves,  and  after 
1870  the  Germans,  in  the  pride  of  conquest, 
would  probably  have  resented  their  own  laugh 
ter.  As  to  the  praise,  it  took  the  form  of 
a  translation  made  by  Th.  Bentzon,  who  was 
writing  a  series  of  articles  on  "  Les  Humo- 
ristes  Americains  "  for  the  "  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,"  and  undertook  to  introduce  Breit 
mann  to  French  readers  (August,  1872).  In 
the  whole  course  of  his  career,  Breitmann 
could  never  have  felt  himself  so  complete 


362  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

a  stranger  as  at  his  own  Barty  transformed 
into  a  Soiree,  and  I  quote  the  first  and  last 
verses  to  show  how  severe  may  sometimes  be 
the  penalty  of  praise. 

"  Hans  Breitmann  a  donne  une  soiree ;  on 
y  a  joue  du  piano.  J'y  tombai  amoureux  d'une 
Americaine ;  son  nom  etait  Mathilde  Yane ; 
Elle  avait  des  cheveux  bruns  cendres  comme 
un  craquelin  ;  ses  yeux  etaient  bleu  de  ciel ; 
Lorsqu'ils  regardaient  dans  les  miens  51s  fen- 
daient  mon  cceur  en  deux." 

"  Hans  Breitmann  a  donne  une  soiree.  Ou 
est  cette  soiree  maintenant  ?  Ou  est  1'aimable 
nuage  d'or  qui  flottait  au  front  de  la  mon- 
tagne?  Ou  est  1'etoile  qui  brillait  au  ciel, 
lumiere  de  1'esprit  ?  Tous  sont  passes  comme 
la  bonne  biere,  passes  dans  1'eternite." 

Now  that  I  am  writing  the  history  of  Breit 
mann,  I  might  as  well  finish  it,  though  it  only 
comes  to  an  end  with  the  death  of  Breit- 
mann's  creator.  For  Breitmann  had  the  secret 
of  perennial  youth,  and  he  was  a  true  cos 
mopolite.  That  was  why  the  Rye  could  send 
his  hero  everywhere  he  went  himself  without 
risk  of  repetition,  why  Breitmann  retained  his 
freshness  in  every  fresh  adventure  found  for 
him,  whether  it  was  in  singing  a  Gypsy  song, 


HANS   BREITMANN  363 

in  going  back  to  the  Munich  and  Paris  of 
1848,  or  in  starting  on  new  travels  through 
Belgium  and  Holland,  down  the  Rhine,  to 
Rome.  But  Breitmann's  vitality  never  as 
serted  itself  so  triumphantly  as  in  1882,  when 
the  Rye  was  back  in  Philadelphia,  and  Phila 
delphia  was  celebrating  its  Bicentennial,  with 
a  Big  Bicycle  Meet  among  other  ceremonies. 
To  this  Meet,  or  its  dinner,  or  reception,  or 
whatever  its  very  special  function  may  have 
been,  my  husband  (not  yet  my  husband)  in 
vited  the  Rye,  as  the  author  of  the  first  bicycle 
poem,  "Schnitzerl's  Philosopede"  of  fifteen 
years  earlier.  The  Rye,  who  socially  was  just 
then  living  a  hermit's  life,  refused,  but  to 
make  up  for  it,  wrote  for  the  occasion  two 
new  verses,  practically  a  third  poem,  and 
made  a  drawing  of  Breitmann  on  his  "  crate 
philosopede."  Whoever  has  read  Breitmann 
remembers  this  "  philosopede,"  a  copy  of 
Schnitzerl's  great  original :  — 

Von  of  de  pullyest  kind  ; 

It  vent  mitout  a  vheel  in  front, 

And  had  n't  none  pehind. 

The  "  Ballad  "  is  one  of  the  best  and  gayest, 
one  in  which  Breitmann  surpassed  even  him 
self  in  philosophical  flights  and  lyrical  out- 


364  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

bursts.  It  was  therefore  with  delight  that  I 
chanced  upon  the  rough  copy  of  the  two  new 
verses,  and,  as  they  have  never  been  printed 
before,  I  am  glad  to  print  them  now.  Schnit- 
zerl  on  his  "  philosopede,"  it  will  be  recalled, 
had 

pounded  onward  till  it  vent 
Cans  tyfelwards  afay, 

but  the  new  verses  explain  that :  — 

Joost  now  and  den  id  makes  a  halt 

Und  cooms  to  oos  adown 
To  see  how  poys  mit  pysickles 

On  eart'  are  kitten  on, 
Und  if  he  pees  mit  us  to-day 

We  gifes  him  our  abblause, 
De  foorst  crate  martyr  in  de  vorld 

Who  berished  in  our  cause. 

Dere  's  lessons  in  de  foamin'  sea 

Und  in  de  foamin'  bier, 
In  every  dings  dots  in  our  life 

Und  all  dat  is  n't  here. 
Und  dis  is  vot  der  Schnitzerl  taught 

Oopon  dis  eardly  ball, 
It 's  petter  to  be  cut  in  dwo 

Dan  nefer  cut  at  all. 

The  whole  incident  pleased  the  Rye. 
When,  in  1885,  he  wrote  an  Introduction  in 
verse  for  the  account  my  husband  and  I 
had  made  of  a  tricycle  ride  from  Florence  to 
Rome,  he  boasted  in  it  that  he  — 


_CL,  e  *    '  ^ -^  ^*~->  * 

<*£<£rriil?  y^r  ^    v-t    <?>^- 


_*       >^^*    CZ  f-'^O' 


X 


^,-~ 


^ 


ADDITIONAL  VERSES  TO  "SCHNITZERL'S  PHILOSOPEDF,"  WRITTEN   IN  1882 


DRAWING  TO   ILLUSTRATE   THE  TWO   ADDITIONAL  VERSES  TO 
"SCHNITZERL'S   PHILOSOPEDF.  " 


HANS   BREITMANN  365 

was  the  first  man  of  modern  time 
Who  on  the  bicycle  e'er  wrote  a  Rime. 

And  in  the  1889  edition  of  Breitmann,  the 
marginal  note  to  "  Schnitzerl's  Philosopede  " 
ends  by  saying,  "  I  believe  it  is  the  first  bicycle 
poem  ever  written."  I  do  not  know  why  the 
success  of  Breitmann's  prophecy  should  have 
put  him  in  the  mood  to  write  Breitmann's 
"  Last  Ballad,"  but  in  1885,  the  year  of  the 
Introduction,  he  wrote  for  Mrs.  Alec  Tweedie, 
then  Miss  Ethel  B.  Harley,  what  he  calls 
"  Breitmann's  Allerletzes  Lied,"  which  also 
has  never  been  printed  before.  Here  it  is :  — 

I  dink  de  sonn'  haf  perisht  in  all  dis  winter  rain, 
I  never  dink  der  Breitmann  vould  efer  sing  again. 
De  sonne  vant  no  candle  nor  any  erdenlicht, 
Votyou  vant  mit  a  poem  bist  selber  ganz  Gedicht  ? 

For  like  a  Paar  of  Ballads  are  de  augen  in  your  head, 
I  petter  call  dem  bullets  vot  shoot  de  Herzen  dead. 
And  ash  like  a  ripplin'  rifer  efery  poem  ought  to  pe, 
So  all  your  form  is  flowin'  in  perfect  harmony. 

I  hear  de  epigramme  in  your  sehr  piquant  replies, 

I  hear  de  sonnets  soundin'  ven  your  accents  fall  und  rise, 

And  if  I  look  upon  you,  vote'er  I  feel  or  see, 

De  voice  and  form  and  motion  is  all  one  melody. 

Du  bist  die  Ideale  of  efery  mortal  ding, 

Ven  poets  reach  de  perfect  dey  need  no  longer  sing, 

Das  Beste  sei  das  Letzte  —  de  last  is  pest  indeed ! 

Brich  Herz  und  Laut !  zusammen — dies  ist  mein  letztes  Lied! 


366   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

But  it  was  by  no  means  the  last  of  Breit- 
mann,  though  in  his  gallantry  he  might  have 
liked  to  think  so.  An  adventurer  of  his  type 
does  not  go  out  with  a  compliment  on  his 
lips.  There  was  other  work  to  do.  He  went 
to  Turkey,  he  tried  his  luck  in  California,  and 
his  hand  at  Gypsy  and  witch  ballads,  and  he 
had  five  new  adventures,  or  poems,  to  add  to 
the  1 889  edition.  Memories  of  his  old  "  Barty  " 
haunted  him,  and  another  verse  for  it  is  writ 
ten  on  the  margin  of  the  1871  annotated  edi 
tion.  It  should  not  be  left  unpublished,  though 
the  "  Barty"  may "  reach  de  perfect "  without  it. 

Hans  Breitmann  gife  a  barty, 

Gott's  blitz  —  vot  foon  we  had ! 
Ve  blayed  at  Kiiss  im  Ringe 

Dill  de  gals  vos  almost  mad. 
And  ven  indo  de  gorner 

Py  Tilda  I  vos  dook, 
Mine  eyes  vos  boost  in  thranen 

To  dink  how  schweet  she  look. 

And  Breitmann  went  to  the  Tyrol  in  the 
more  peaceful  occupation  of  courier  or  guide, 
and  wrote  a  whole  book  about  it,  in  prose, 
published  by  Mr.  Fisher  Unwin  in  1894. 
Beer  flows  freely  in  the  Tyrol,  and  Breit- 
mann's  spirits  always  flow  as  freely  with  it. 
But,  somehow,  this  Breitmann  book  does  not 


HANS   BREITMANN  367 

give  the  same  impression  of  reckless  enjoy 
ment,  perhaps  because  it  is  in  prose.  I  can 
almost  fancy  the  old  "  Bummer  "  and  Uhlan 
a  little  cast  down  by  the  mildness  of  his  new 
adventures.  Breitmann  even  had  an  eye  to 
affairs  in  South  Africa.  For  the  Rye,  a  very 
old  man  in  Florence  when  the  Boer  war 
broke  out,  in  looking  back  to  his  many  years 
in  England,  remembered  only  the  pleasure 
they  had  brought  him,  and,  as  his  special 
envoy,  sent  Breitmann  there,  with  a  word  of 
sympathy  that  not  many  other  Americans  I 
know  could  have  offered  with  him.  These 
verses  were  published  in  "  Flaxius  "  (1903),  a 
book  brought  out  a  few  months  before  his 
death.  There  they  were  called  "  Breitmann's 
Last  Ballad,"  and  they  really  were.  Breit 
mann  has  passed  through  his  last  adventure, 
through  his  last  debauch  of  beer  and  pure 
reason.  But  he  still  lives,  and  he  will  live  as 
long  as  the  American  retains  his  sense  of 
humour,  which  will  be  as  long  as  America  is 
—  America. 

NOTE.  —  After  this  chapter  had  been  set 
up  in  type,  I  received  an  interesting  letter 
from  Mr.  Norcross,  the  Rye's  old  friend  and 


368   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

fellow-worker  on  the  "  Press,"  on  the  subject 
of  the  early  editions  of  Breitmann.  u  In  the 
January  '  Atlantic  '  (1905),  page  79,  column  2, 
you  seem  to  think  that  the  '  Ballads '  were 
not  published  until  1869,"  he  writes.  "This 
may  be  true  if  we  take  the  title  '  Ballads,'  but 
I  have  just  found  my  copy  of  the  first  im 
pression,  I  do  not  call  it  edition,  and  the  title- 
page  reads :  |  Hans  Breitmann's  |  Party.  | 
With  other  Ballads.  |  It  was  published  by 
the  Petersons,  but  on  the  other  side  of  the 
leaf  is  the  copyright  notice  by  Charles  G. 
Leland  in  1868.  Of  this  I  suppose  John  Lu 
ther  Ringwalt  was  the  printer.  My  copy  was 
sent  to  me  by  Mr.  Leland  while  he  was  en 
gaged  on  the  '  Press,'  and  after  I  had  left 
that  newspaper.  My  home  was  then  in  Mont 
gomery,  Alabama.  This  impression  has  the 
dedication  lacking  in  all  the  other  editions : 
|  Dem  Herrn  |  "Carl  Benson"  |  (Charles 
Astor  Bristed)  |  achtungsvoll  gewidmet  | 
vom  |  Verfasser,  |  followed  on  the  next  page 
by  the  invocation:  |  Ad  Musam  |  ...  If 
Mr.  Bristed's  abortive  attempt  could  be  called 
the  first  edition,  this  is  really  the  second, 
and  the  issue  under  the  title  of  the  'Ballads,' 
First  Part,  would  properly  be  the  third  edi- 


HANS   BREITMANN  369 

tion.  The  word  edition,  you  know,  is  ex 
ceedingly  elastic."  Mr.  Norcross  confirms 
what  I  have  said  as  to  the  difficulties  the 
first  publishers  of  Breitmann  put  in  the  way 
of  collectors  and  bibliographers.  Since  my 
book  was  written,  letters  from  Bristed  to  the 
Rye  have  been  put  into  my  hands,  and  they 
show  me  that  even  in  1866  Bristed  was  urg 
ing  publication  in  book  form.  "  Do  publish," 
he  says  in  one.  "  I  will  take  a  share  of  the 
expense  for  the  sake  of  that  dedication  and 
also  as  being  in  some  sense  the  '  worshipful 
begetter'  of  the  late  B.'s."  In  another  letter 
of  Bristed's  (without  date),  there  is  a  passage 
that  shows  how  well  he  knew  how  to  appre 
ciate  Breitmann :  "  You  are  wrong  about  the 
Breitmanns,  they  will  hand  you  down  to  pos 
terity.  I  recollect  some  remarks  of  Irving's 
which  greatly  impressed  my  (comparatively) 
tender  mind  when  I  was  disgusted  because 
the  *  Upper  Ten  Thousand '  had  a  run  when 
my  classical  writings  attracted  little  atten 
tion.  '  Don't  you  despise  light  writing/  said 
he,  'it  is  like  an  elephant  despising  a  bird 
for  flying  up  in  the  air.'  "  I  must  at  least  re 
fer  to  other  letters  that  came  too  late  to  help 
me  with  the  text.  They  are  from  Trlibner. 


3/0  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

One,  July  17,  1868,  asks  that  the  American 
publishers  of  Breitmann  send  him  "25  copies 
to  begin  with."  Another,  a  year  later,  is  full 
of  the  English  pirated  edition  brought  out 
by  Hotten,  and  urges  the  Rye  to  come  to 
London  and  there  prepare  an  edition  with 
new  Ballads  and  a  new  Preface.  "  I  trust  you 
will  not  quarrel  with  me  for  having  almost 
committed  you  to  come  to  England,"  Triib- 
ner  begs.  This  was  one  of  the  reasons,  no 
doubt,  why  the  Rye  decided  to  leave  home 
in  1869. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  FIRST  HOLIDAY 

AT  the  age  of  forty-five,  the  Rye  found  him 
self  for  the  first  time  free  to  order  his  life 
and  choose  his  company,  and,  straightway, 
he  fell  among  Gypsies  and  became  the  Rye 
in  earnest. 

The  Gypsies,  however,  did  not  fill  all  his 
life  or  form  all  his  company.  He  would  not 
have  liked  them  so  well  if  they  had.  Half 
the  charm  was  in  the  sort  of  dual  existence 
that  came  of  devoting  part  of  his  time  to 
them,  part  to  conventional  society  and  pur 
suits, —  the  Jekyll-Hyde  combination  in  its 
romantic  aspect.  And,  indeed,  the  "  Jekyll " 
side  was  so  full,  so  richly  coloured,  that  it 
would  have  sufficed  for  most  men.  Even 
had  there  been  no  Gypsies,  the  years  from 
1869  to  1879,  with  England  for  headquar 
ters,  would  still  seem  far  from  the  least 
amusing  of  his  varied  career.  He  was  in  his 
very  prime;  his  reputation  had  preceded 
him;  he  met  all  the  people  worth  meeting; 


372  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

he  lived  much  in  the  world  ;  he  entertained 
and  was  entertained  ;  he  made  many  friends ; 
now  and  then  he  wandered  from  England  to 
the  Continent  as  far  as  Russia,  to  the  East 
as  far  as  Egypt,  countries  not  then  exploited 
by  Cook  or  appropriated  by  Lunn ;  and,  all 
the  while,  he  worked,  it  turning  out  that  free, 
as  in  harness,  he  could  not  get  on  without 
work.  Only  now  he  was  his  own  task-mas 
ter.  Of  this  "  Jekyll,"  or  conventional,  or 
social  side  there  is  so  much  to  be  said  that 
I  leave  the  Gypsies  until  I  have  said  as 
much  of  it  as  I  can.  The  two  sides  were  kept 
as  chapters  apart  in  his  life,  and  so  they 
must  be  in  my  story  of  it.  The  documents  — 
papers,  MSS.,  letters  —  at  my  disposal  are 
now  plentiful.  There  continue  to  be  gaps. 
I  have  not  so  many  of  his  own  letters  as  I 
should  like.  But  in  those  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  John  Harrison,  he  can  be  accom 
panied  step  by  step  through  almost  all  his 
travels ;  those  he  received  help  further  to 
show  how  his  days  were  spent,  how  days 
could  be  spent  by  a  man  of  letters  in  the 
seventies. 

When  he  left  home  in  the  April  of  1869, 
he  sailed  for  France.    He  landed  at   Brest 


THE  FIRST   HOLIDAY  373 

and  went  at  once  to  Paris,  where  he  stayed 
a  couple  of  months.  One  letter  he  carried 
with  him  —  a  letter  of  introduction  —  has 
survived,  probably  because  it  was  never  de 
livered.  It  marks  the  end  of  his  busy  days 
as  dramatic  and  musical  critic.  For  it  is 
from  Max  Strakosch,  who,  no  doubt  with  an 
eye  to  the  main  chance,  but  out  of  sheer 
good-nature,  too,  —  the  stock-in-trade  of  the 
profession,  —  introduced  to  his  brother  Mau 
rice  "  Mr.  Leland,  a  very  wealthy  man  and 
very  highly  educated,  ...  the  defender  of 
Miss  Kellogg  from  the  stupid  attacks  of  Bo 
hemian  papers,"  —  a  man  to  be  brought  into 
"  society,"  any  favour  to  whom  "  will  do  me 
good."  But  the  Paris  society  into  which 
Maurice  Strakosch  could  bring  him  was  just 
the  kind  for  which  the  Rye  was  no  longer 
eager.  He  says  in  his  "  Memoirs  "  that,  after 
his  arrival  in  Paris,  "a  distaste  for  operas, 
theatres,  dinners,  society"  suddenly  came 
over  him,  which  is  the  reason  why  the  let 
ter  now  lies  before  me,  the  paper  torn  and 
crumpled,  and  the  memories  it  awakens  of 
opera  in  the  sixties  as  faint  and  faded  as 
the  paper. 

The  Rye's  letters  to  Mrs.   Harrison  and 


374  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

her  husband  did  reach  their  destination,  how 
ever,  and  were  taken  good  care  of,  and  the 
few  I  am  able  to  print  not  only  account  for 
his  movements  from  the  time  he  landed  in 
France  until  he  settled  in  England,  and  the 
gradual  improvement  of  his  health,  but  give 
many  a  side-light  into  European  conditions  for 
the  generation  of  Americans  who  came  after 
Mr.  Henry  James's  "  precursors."  Only  one 
other  word  is  necessary.  Mrs.  Harrison  was 
many  years  younger  than  he,  and  his  letters 
to  her  never  altogether  lost  the  playful  tone 
of  the  grown-up  brother  to  the  small  sister, 
—  a  grown-up  brother,  it  should  be  said,  in 
whom  many  duties  and  much  hard  work 
could  not  destroy  the  boyish  sense  of  fun. 
As  much  is  to  be  learned  of  a  man  in  his 
playful  as  in  his  serious  or  adventurous 
moods,  and  these  letters  are  among  the  gay 
est  he  ever  wrote. 

CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO   MRS.   JOHN    HARRISON 

PARIS,  le  vingt  Mai,  1869,  POINT  ROUND, 

CHAMS  ELIZA. 

MA  SHERE  SUR, — Je  suis  in  Paris  and 
am  become  a  Parisite,  being  dreadfully 
cheated  by  my  landlady,  and  having  to  eat 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  375 

my  vegetables  after  my  meat.  All  the  coach 
men  and  waiters  call  themselves  poor  boys 
and  say  poor  boy,  which  means  sous,  which 
means  cents.  They  sou  you  all  the  time  and 
generally  get  judgment  out  of  me.  We  had 
a  very  roly  boly  passage  and  I  was  pleased 
to  observe  that  everybody  was  very  sick  all 
the  way.  They  landed  us  at  Brest,  where  a 
gentleman  asked  to  see  what  I  had  in  my 
trunk.  Knowing  that  one  must  be  polite  in 
France,  I  opened  it,  but  I  don't  think  he 
saw  anything  interesting,  for  he  simply  said, 
"C'est  assay''  from  which  I  inferred  he  must 
have  been  one  of  the  asseyors  of  the  mint  or 
assezsors  of  the  revenue.  Then  we  went  past 
many  old  houses  and  forts  to  our  hotel. 
Belle  and  I  had  each  a  little  room  and  a  very 
little  narrow  bed.  Next  morning  we  saw 
peasants  in  wooden  shoes,  John  Darms,  girls 
with  white  caps  such  as  viz.  [A  drawing 
follows  in.  the  original  letter.]  All  these  ob 
jects  produced  a  very  French  sensation.  We 
had  breakfast  a  la  fork  twice  between  Brest 
and  Paris,  and  one  dinner.  At  Paris  we  were 
searched  again,  —  for  wine  and  sausages  I 
was  told,  —  and  then  went  to  the  Grand  Hotel, 
room  8  francs  a  day,  as  dirty  as  could  be. 


376  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

I  wish  John  were  here  to  enjoy  the  din 
ners.  Belle  and  I  recalled  John  at  the  Trois 
Freres  the  other  day,  where  we  had  a  sump 
tuous  dinner ;  they  brought  on  one  elegant 
thing  after  another,  and  we  were  overcome 
with  the  luxuries.  This  cost  8  francs  apiece 
and  3  fr.  for  the  coffee.  Next  day  we  dined 
for  5  francs  for  both,  and  I  enjoyed  it  just 
as  much.  The  whole  town  consists  of  rest- 
your-aunts  and  cafes.  We  live  in  a  couple 
of  gingerbread  gilt  bird  cages  in  the  Champs 
Eliza — and  have  the  greatest  old  villain  of 
a  landlady  in  Paris.  But  the  place  is  very 
clean  and  lodgings  are  mostly  dirty  here. 
Rond  Point,  Champs  Elysees  is  the  spot.  It 
is  the  most  elite-ful  place  in  Paris  and  com 
mands  a  fine  view  of  the  Palais  d' Industrie 
and  the  Dome  of  the  Invalids.  The  best  of 
it  is  they  are  a  mile  off,  leaving  open  space 
and  pure  air.  Paris  is  so  much  improved 
that  I  have  as  yet  seen  very  little  unchanged. 
Yesterday  we  visited  the  Musee  Cluny. 
The  Leas  lead  a  charming  life  and  speak 
French  like  natives.  They  were  delighted  to 
see  us  and  Nanny  is  devoted,  doing  every 
thing  for  Belle  and  me.  She  is  progressing 
wonderfully  as  a  painter  and  engraver.  My 


THE   FIRST  HOLIDAY  377 

book  in  England  continues  to  be  read.  Even 
"  Punch  "  publishes  imitations  of  Breitmann, 
and  there  have  been  three  or  four  of  the 
Barty.  Belle  is  getting  on  very  well.  Give  a 
kiss  for  me  to  dear  little  Emmy.  I  miss  the 
sweet  child  very  much.  Also  Leland,  and 
kindest  remembrances  to  John,  Betty,  Fanny, 
William  and  the  Elders  and  everybody. 

Your  affectionate  brother, 

CHARLEY. 

P.  S.  —  Laura  Hooper  has  written  to  me 
asking  us  to  take  charge  of  her.  I  cannot 
do  it  —  it  is  out  of  the  question.  All  my 
arrangements  make  it  utterly  impossible, 
and  my  mind  will  not  as  yet  admit  of  any 
even  ordinary  little  cares.  I  have  written  to 
her  explaining  that  I  cannot  arrange  it. 

CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO   MR.    JOHN   HARRISON 

SPA,  BELGIUM,  July  31,  1869. 

DEAR  JOHN,  —  I  received  yesterday  and  ac 
knowledge  with  thanks  your  letter  containing 
draft  for  2629  francs  55  centimes.  I  am  sorry 
that  your  business  keeps  you  at  home  for  I 
don't  know  a  man  in  America  who  would  en 
joy  Europe  as  you  would.  "  Them  dinners  " 


378  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

—  "  Those  loafing  places ! "  —  The  dinners, 
either  at  Paris  or  here,  are  exactly  the  articles 
which  you  have  so  long  needed,  —  they  roast 
beef  so  as  to  make  you  believe  it  used  to  fly, 
and  the  vol-au-vents,  all  full  of  truffles,  force 
meat  balls,  roosters'-combs,  and  cream  sauce, 
would  make  any  one  weep  who  had  not  a 
heart  of  stone.  To  be  sure,  these  5  and  10 
francs  dinners  are  not  such  as  the  "  likes  of 
hus  "  get  every  day  reg'lar,  but  still  we  have 
our  cut  of  salmon  and  bit  of  tenderloin,  a  two 
franc  bottle  of  Bordeaux,  which  the  doctor 
orders  and  which  is  very  good,  and  so  they 
do  not  charge  us  much,  $20  a  week  in  gold 
covering  our  hotel  board.  This  is  not  a  first 
class  house,  of  course,  but  it  is  very  clean,  — 
and  there  is  the  "  hoighth  av  good  coom- 
pany,"  as  we  have  frequent  rows  with  a  real 
Russian  Prince  and  his  company  who  are 
allowed  to  take  their  dinners  after  we  have 
done.  Now  Spa  is  about  7000  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea,  and  the  Russians  are  hungry 
pups  anyhow,  so  that  we  often  are  long  eating 
in  our  private  dining-room,  while  the  Rusher 
wants  to  be  eating.  However,  all  goes  ami 
ably  enough.  There  are  only  three  or  four 
Americans  here,  but  any  quantity  of  all  kinds 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  379 

of  foreigners.  Yesterday  Belle  sat  teaching 
Democracy  to  a  little  Hungarian  Count,  with 
a  Greek  Count  who  looked  like  a  fashion- 
plate  opposite,  and  several  other  kinds  of 
counts,  such  as  Dutch,  Belgian,  etc.,  scattered 
around  —  all  of  them  d — d  fools  except  the 
Belgian,  who  is  really  a  most  sensible  man, 
and  is  accordingly  regarded  as  weak-minded 
by  his  fellow-peers.  They  are  ungodly  ig 
norant  as  to  America.  One  fellow,  Baron 
Dieskau,  is,  however,  "  sporty,"  and  likes  to 
know  all  about  our  yachts,  canoeing,  etc.  I 
think  you  would  like  him  very  much. 

Spa  is  a  sort  of  French  Saratoga  with  lots 
of  fine  drives  and  walks.  We  see  the  Queen 
almost  every  day.  Blessed  privilege !  Give 
my  love  to  Emily.  This  is  the  first  letter  I 
have  been  able  to  write  with  ease  or  correctly 
since  I  left  America.  I  wish  you  were  here. 
Ever  truly,  your  brother, 

CHAS.  G.  LELAND. 

CHARLES   GODFREY    LELAND   TO   MRS.    JOHN    HARRISON 

AMSTERD-M,  Sept.  23,  1869. 

Mijne  lieve  Zuster  /  —  Ik  habbe  so  veel  te 
zeggen  dat  ik  niet  weet  waer  ik  beginnen  zuL 
Why  don't  you  send  us  a  letter  ?  After  leav- 


38o  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

ing  Spa  we  went  to  Ostend,  where  three  weeks 
of  sea-bathing  did  me  much  good.  Ostend 
is  composed  of  a  sea  surf,  a  great  dyke  on 
top  of  which  is  a  promenade  lined  with  coffee 
houses,  hotels,  and  pavilions,  little  boys  clat 
tering  dreadfully  in  wooden  shoes  (Klompers), 
and  ten  thousand  German  Jews  and  small 
German  shop-keepers,  who  walk  by  the  sea 
and  exclaim,  "  Ach  /  wie  scheen  /  —  es  ist 
himmlisch  !  —  sehen  sie  ja  wie  hell  der  Mond 
scheent  /  "  From  Ostend  we  repaired  again 
to  Spa,  where  we  met  Mr.  Triibner  and  his 
wife.  They  were  very  glad  to  see  us  —  as  also 
our  Walloon  landlady,  cook,  and  Jeanette,  who 
performed  a  wild  Walloon  dance  of  joy  in  the 
street  at  seeing  us  return.  They  were  always 
very  nice  people  and  immensely  jolly.  Well, 
—  Mr.  Triibner  did  everything  to  make  us 
feel  obejoyful,  —  if  I  spoke  of  a  book  which  I 
wanted  to  read,  the  first  mail  brought  it  for 
me  from  Liege  or  London.  And  he  also  paid 
me  a  thousand  francs  in  gold  —  or  nearly  — 
for  my  share  of  profits  in  the  "  Breitmann 
Ballads." 

.  .  .  Well,  after  7  weeks  of  Spa,  and  3  at 
Ostend,  we  went  into  Holland.  .  .  .  O  mijn 
zuster,  you  ought  to  see  Belle  at  a  real  Dutch 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  381 

tea-party  where  four  languages  were  spoken 
among  5  or  6  folks !  Raw  smoked  salmon  in 
flakes  —  Dutchman's  head-cheese,  brood  en 
boter,  green  pears,  tongue  and  honey,  toasted 
bread  in  slices  with  cinnamon  on  it,  and 
waffels.  (This  is  Dutch  and  English.)  Well, 
first  we  exhausted 's  Gravenhage  or  La  Haye, 
with  its  museums.  Here  we  went  to  see  the 
House  in  the  Wood,  and  were  received  with 
wonderful  courtesy.  It  is  the  Queen's  sum 
mer  palace,  but  we  did  not  know  that  she  was 
there,  —  and  the  splendid  lackeys,  &c.,  sup 
posed  we  had  come  to  call  on  Her  Majesty. 
When  they  found  we  only  wanted  to  see 
the  house,  they  were  quite  as  polite.  The  old 
housekeeper  woman  showed  us  all  around  — 
but  oh  !  it  was  too  funny!  A-  perfect  cordon 
of  servants,  my  dear,  kept  telegraphing,  and 
Belle  and  I  were  rushed  from  room  to  room 
to  evade  the  Queen  as  she  went  here  and 
there  —  just  as  if  she  had  been  a  great  cat 
and  we  two  miserable  little  mice.  Forty 
cents  (American)  perfectly  satisfied  the  house 
keeper,  and  four  cents  the  stately  gentle 
man  who  took  care  of  our  umbrellas.  Three 
impious  Jews  who  tried  to  get  in  were  in 
dignantly  repulsed.  The  stately  gentleman 


382  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

insisted  on  summoning  our  carriage  and  re 
tainers,  and  persisted  by  a  polite  fiction  in 
not  believing  me,  when  I  said  we  had  none. 
The  way  I  do  these  things  is  by  looking  at 
them. 

.  .  .  We  have  seen  almost  every  good 
gallery  in  Holland  and  Belgium  and  met 
with  some  very  intelligent  people.  The 
Dutch  are  very  rich  and  live  very  comfort 
ably,  something  in  the  old  Philadelphia 
Quaker  style.  They  are  strong  Orthodox 
Puritans,  —  and  at  Haarlem  we  had  a  stiff 
old  brimstone  sermon  in  Low  Dutch,  which 
was  divided  into  3  heads,  and  lasted  an  hour 
and  a  half  with  hymns  in  between.  As  I 
was  just  before  the  preacher  and  a  stranger, 
he  preached  right  at  me.  Now  I  have  stud 
ied  Dutch  this  summer  with  a  teacher,  and 
can  read  it  and  talk  it  very  badly  indeed  a 
little,  but  I  did  n't  understand  his  Dutch. 
Belle  says  my  conduct  was  perfect  "  and  as 
good  as  could  be  !  "  Three  collections  were 
wrung  out  of  us,  —  two  by  means  of  a  black 
velvet  bag  on  a  pole  and  another  by  a  stern- 
looking  Dutch  girl  who  would  n't  let  us  out 
till  we  paid  for  our  seats.  She  was,  however, 
sternly  honest  and  refused  a  loose  grab  of 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  383 

small  change  because  it  was  too  much,  and 
then  sassed  us  some  more  for  that  —  for 
which  I  honoured  her.  The  men  sit  in  large 
pews  and  have  great  books  provided,  while 
the  women  sit  in  the  body  of  the  church  and 
provide  their  own  him  and  Sam  bux;  but 
I  sat  with  Belle  —  and  I  observed  a  party 
of  young  Englishmen  from  the  hotel  who 
also  sat  among  the  Dutchesses.  "  Secondly" 
used  them  up  and  they  marched  out,  like 
shameless,  sinful  wretches.  I  suppose  they 
were  only  Episcopalians,  and  not  so  strict  as 
I.  There  is  a  Dutch  family  here  named 
Muller  who  have  been  very  polite  to  us,  and 
Mynheer  Muller  will  go  with  us  to-morrow 
part  way  to  Cologne.  I  wish  you  would  get 
some  book  from  the  library,  if  only  Murray's 
Guide  Book,  and  trace  our  route. 

COLOGNE-ON-RHINE,  Sept.  26,  1869. 

We  left  Amsterdam  yesterday  morning, 
and  had  a  pleasant  ride  to  Cologne.  It  was 
really  a  comfort  to  be  addressed  in  a  sen 
sible  language,  and  charming  to  get  into  old 
Germany  again,  and  have  a  glimpse  of  the 
stupendous  cathedral. 

.  .  .  Our  room  faces  on  the  Rhine  and  the 


384  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

view  is  very  beautiful  —  wonderful.  To  the 
left  we  see  the  blue  outline  of  the  Seven 
Hills,  including  the  spot  where  Siegfried 
killed  the  dragon  —  there  are  towers  and 
churches  —  and  we  are  quite  near  the  river 
—  not  two  rods  from  it  —  it  almost  flows 
under  our  windows.  Belle  says  I  have  grown 
fat  and  German  since  yesterday.  We  had 
pheasants  brought  on  entirely  in  their  own 
feathers  at  dinner  with  silver  bodkins  in 
them.  Salmon  mayonnaise  and  other  daily 
kisses.  So  good-night,  dear,  for  I  am  tired. 
Sometimes  the  past  and  the  dead  nearly 
make  me  ill  again,  but  I  fight  against  it. 
God  give  us  all  peace.  Love  to  John.  .  .  . 

CHARLES    GODFREY    LELAND    TO    MRS.    JOHN     HARRISON 

DRESDEN,  Nov.  17,  1869. 

MINE  TEAR  swiSHTER  EMILY  —  Dere  ish 
dwo  liddle  togs  all  so  plack  as  nefer  vas,  dat 
lifes  here  in  dis  Haus,  und  ven  dey  hears 
Pelle  mit  de  sooper  daple  dey  cooms  und 
kratzen  on  de  Thiire  und  ven  I  lets  dem 
coom  in  dey  kits  soom  loomps  ov  zlicker  und 
denn  dey  wedels  mit  deir  dales  und  shmiles 
like  avery  dings.  [Here  follows  a  drawing  of 
them.] 


THE  FIRST   HOLIDAY  385 

I  had  got  so  far  in  my  letter  when  Belle 
interfered,  declaring  that  you  would  really 
think  my  wits  had  taken  leave  of  me — which 
is  very  illiterate  of  her,  considering  that  the 
Breitmann  style  was  hailed  so  enthusiastically 
by  so  many  great  guns  of  literature.  How 
ever,  we  must  defer  in  such  matters  to  the 
vulgar  world  ("  saucy  fellow,"  "  scamp  "),  and 
though  Himmel  weisst  what  choice  flowers 
of  Anglo-German  have  been  lost  by  the 
change,  I  will  proceed  in  such  English  as 
is  left  me  in  this  fair  land  of  Sauerkraut  and 
stewed  celery  roots  — apropos  of  which  latter, 
our  landlady,  Miss  Roelin,  serves  up  the  roots 
and  throws  away  the  tops ! 

We  are  very  comfortably  —  I  might  almost 
say  elegantly  —  situated  here,  with  a  parlor 
and  bedroom  in  an  easy  third  story  (not  etage). 
But  our  elegance  is  very  peculiar.  It  is  a  bare 
painted  yellow  floor  with  a  Turkey  carpet  loose 
in  the  middle  —  a  fashion  I  much  admire  — 
pretty  green  chairs  and  sofa  like  those  in  your 
dining-room  —  a  jardiniere  of  course  (which 
Belle  nearly  slaughtered  by  not  watering  for  a 
week),  a  grand  and  stately  iron  monument 
of  a  stove,  mirror,  and  lamp  with  a  flat  glass 
plate  under  the  shade.  Of  course  we  are  rele- 


386  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

gated  each  unto  a  separate  bed,  and  mine  is, 
for  a  wonder,  very  long,  it  having  been  made 
for  a  German  count  who  must  have  been  just 
9  feet  in  length,  if  we  are  to  judge  by  the 
small  seidlitz-box  bedsteads  usually  allotted 
to  mere  six-footers  in  Deutschland.  Au  reste 
(this  is  French  for  the  rest  of  them),  we  have 
a  nice  daily  dinner  at  which  I  sit  by  Mrs. 
Cochrane  and  opposite  Belle,  while  Belle  sits 
by  Major  Cochrane  and  opposite  me.  The 
Major  has  been  25  years  in  India  —  is  a  lively 
little  keen  Englishman  who  has  had  no  end 
of  adventures.  At  the  other  ends  sit  Herr 
and  Frau  Roelin.  They  speak  no  English, 
and  the  rest  very  little  German,  so  that  I  am 
obliged  to  translate  a  great  deal,  and  what 
with  telling  lots  of  American  stories  first  in 
English  and  then  in  Dutch  I  have  no  sinecure 
of  it. 

.  .  .  I  am  learning  to  paint  on  porcelain 
and  find  it  very  interesting.  This  is  a  great 
city  for  porcelain,  and  the  shops  full  of  old 
Dresden  ware  are  magnificent.  My  teacher 
is  a  very  neat,  gentlemanly  little  bit  of  a 
curly-haired  German,  and  has  lots  of  pupils 
at  a  thaler  for  two  scholars  for  a  lesson  of 
two  hours.  Yesterday  I  etched  a  copper 


POWDER  HORN 
In  papier-mache",  made  and  decorated  by  Charles  G.  Leland 


PLATE 

Decorated  by  diaries  G.  Leland 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  387 

plate,  so  you  see  that  I  have  plenty  of  play 
things  —  as  Belle  calls  them  when  she  brings 
me  my  various  implements  for  designing. 

Evening.  Belle  has  had  it  out  with  the 
Wascherinn  and,  with  the  help  of  Clara,  has 
added  up  thalers,  groschen,  and  pfennige, 
which  last  word  Clara  has  proudly  called 
bennies  (very  explanatory  considering  that  a 
pfennig  is  about  a  third  of  a  cent),  and  we 
have  had  Mrs.  Cochrane,  who  explained  that 
there  is  in  India  an  enterprising  American 
named  Dave  Carson  who  has  made  $100,000 
by  singing  nigger  minstrel  songs  in  broken 
Hindoo  English  in  Oriental  dress.  Who  but 
an  American  could  have  done  such  a  thing ! 
The  other  evening  we  called  on  Mrs.  Irish, 
wife  of  our  consul,  who  receives  —  and  while 
talking  about  Mrs.  Govr.  Ramsey,  in  came 
Mrs.  R.  herself.  She  told  us  that  Miss  Koch 
had  been  out  here  with  her  daughter  and 
gone  back  to  America  with  another  young 
lady.  Die  Kochinn  has  really  got  ahead 
of  us! 

We  have  heard  through  Mary  that  Mr. 
Biddle  had  asked  you  to  have  our  house 
fixed  up.  We  are  very  grateful,  dear  Emmy, 
for  all  the  interest  you  have  taken  in  the 


388  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

house   and   the   trouble  it  has  entailed   on 
you. 

.  .  .  They  give  us  dlishus  pears  and  grapes 
every  morning  for  breakfast,  and  it  is  well 
they  do,  for  we  get  chops,  chops,  chops,  six 
days  in  the  week  for  that  meal,  which  ought 
to  be  early  and  is  n't,  for  we  are  lazy  (espe 
cially  Belle).  Mutting,  weal,  pork,  and  other 
chops,  choplets,  and  cotelettes.  I  have  beer 
for  tea,  reglar,  and  all  things  considered 
may  say  with  truth  that  I  have  got  so  that 
I  can  sit  up  and  take  a  little  nourishment. 
To-day  they  gave  us  rose-cordial  with  our 
after-dinner  coffee  —  and  the  major  went 
into  the  kitchen  and  cooked  a  curry,  which 
Belle  and  I  ate  thrice  of  with  great  relish, 
but  which  drew  tears  to  the  eyes  of  the  Ger 
mans,  who  are  not  accustomed  to  such  tropi 
cal  fruit.  One  of  your  soups  would  scorch  a 
Dutchman's  throat  out,  like  a  red-hot  poker 
and  rusty  at  that !  Mrs.  Roelin  gazed  at  Belle 
as  if  she  had  been  a  fiend  devouring  burning 
sulphur  seasoned  with  aqua  fortis,  and  ex 
claimed,  Konnen  Sie  es  wirklich  essen  !  — 
"  Can  you  really  eat  it? " — a  very  unnecessary 
question  as  I  thought,  for  it  was  a  very  mild 
curry  anyhow.  —  If  the  house  is  not  rented, 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  389 

Mr.  Muirhead  must  take  what  he  can  get. 
Better  take  a  reduced  rate  than  have  it  un 
occupied.  And  a  little  more  money  would  be 
very  acceptable,  as  I  want  a  new  pair  of  gloves 
sadly. 

Belle  has  a  he-dressmaker  —  they  are  all 
men  who  make  ladies'  dresses  here  —  a  pre 
cious  Dutch  looking  skirt  he  made  of  it. 
En  revanche,  the  women  black  the  boots  and 
one  may  see  a  cow,  a  horse,  and  a  frau  har 
nessed  together,  drawing  a  cart,  and  a  man 
driving  the  anamiles.  Woman  has  found  her 
rights  in  this  country  and  may  do  anything 
she  pleases,  so  that  it  is  n't  too  easy.  The 
liter  branches  of  a  more  aerial  cast  are  left 
to  us  men,  so  that  the  division  of  labour  is 
perfect.  Great  snakes !  how  the  women  do 
toil  here  in  Germany!  In  fact  they  like  it 
and  can't  be  kept  from  hard  work. 

There  is  an  American  club  here,  an  Amer 
ican  church,  and,  in  short,  the  natives  know 
more  about  Americans  than  English.  The 
cheapness  of  education  is  the  cause  which 
brings  so  many  of  us  here  —  as  you  have 
seen  by  my  cheap  porcelain-painting  tuition. 

We  are  very  glad  to  hear  that  sister  Mary 
has  returned  safely.  It  was  a  bitter  disap- 


390  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

pointment  to  me  when  she  returned.  I  think 
so  often  of  your  dear  little  girl,  and  expect 
with  impatience  a  letter  from  Leland.  How 
proud  I  shall  be  to  have  a  letter  from  him, 
and  how  fine  it  is  for  a  boy  to  be  able  to 
write  letters !  Methinks  I  can  see  him  now 
with  a  pen  in  his  hand  writing  to  deer 
Unkel  Charles.  I  send  you  one  of  my  photo 
graphs  and  will  send  one  to  Sister  Mary  in 
my  next  letter.  Give  my  kindest  regards  to 
Betty  Harrison.  There  is  a  picture  here  in  a 
window,  by  the  bankers,  which  I  stop  and  look 
at  every  day  —  it  is  so  much  like  her.  .  .  . 
The  days  are  so  short  here  now  that  we  have 
almost  no  afternoon.  And  with  heartfelt  love, 
believe  me  ever  your  affectionate  brother, 

CHARLES. 

CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND   TO   MR.   JOHN   HARRISON 

MUNICH,  Feb.  21,  1870. 

MY  DEAR  JOHN,  —  This  morning,  while 
on  our  way  to  the  great  picture  gallery,  we 
stopped  at  the  Bank  and  got  your  very  wel 
come  letter,  enclosing  draft  on  Drexel  and 
Harjis  for  121  francs,  which  was  very  accept 
able,  since  every  franc  tells  in  a  country 
where  you  get  a  cab  ride  for  9  cents.  I  also 


THE  FIRST   HOLIDAY  391 

acknowledge  receipt  of  a  very  satisfactory 
account  of  the  estate,  and  rejoice  to  think 
that  next  year  may  give  us  a  lift  upwards.  I 
have  not  yet  got  so  far  that  we  can  travel 
when  and  where  we  please,  as  loose  as  swal 
lows.  When  we  can  I  shall  have  no  care. 
As  yet,  we  find  long  rests  very  advantageous 
to  purse  as  well  as  health,  and  have  just  com 
pleted  one  of  three  months  and  a  half  at  Dres 
den,  where,  however,  we  were  very  comfort 
able  and  had  many  friends.  From  Dresden 
we  had  a  very  hard  winter  day's  journey 
(the  winter  has  been  terribly  severe  all  over 
Europe)  to  Prague,  though  it  was  through 
the  heart  of  the  most  romantic  scenery  in 
Germany,  called  the  Saxon  Switzerland.  In 
Prague,  we  had  to  go  through  freezing  gal 
leries  and  go  about  town  in  a  light,  dusty 
snow-storm,  and  poor  Belle  had  a  "dread 
ful  bad  "  cold  all  the  time.  Then  came  an 
other  day's  very  severe  travel  from  6  A.  M. 
till  8.30  P.  M.  to  Munich,  where  we  have 
treated  ourselves  to  a  few  days'  residence 
at  the  very  best  hotel  in  Germany.  The 
place  (Four  Seasons  Hotel)  is  delightfully 
comfortable  and  very  nobby.  Prices  high  for 
Germany,  but  there  is  a  reading-room  with 


392  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

the  "  N.  Y.  Herald  "  and  "  London  Times," 
for  ladies. 

We  are  delighted  with  little  Em's  photo 
graph  —  the  best  ever  taken.  You  can  have 
no  idea,  dear  John,  how  we  enjoy  letters  from 
home,  and  how  pleasant  it  is  to  be  remem 
bered  so  kindly  and  so  often.  We  meet  very 
nice  people  sometimes,  especially  English,  and 
I  may  say,  if  it  be  not  too  vain,  that  we  have 
never  met  with  any  who  do  not  know  me  by 
name.  It  is  really  wonderful.  Yesterday  even 
ing  at  dinner  we  entered  into  conversation 
with  an  English  family,  very  cultivated  peo 
ple.  The  gentleman  head  of  the  party  hardly 
believed  me  when  I  told  him  who  I  was — both 
he  and  his  pretty  niece  had  my  book,  and  told 
me  that  in  England  everybody  knew  me.  We 
are  invited  to  stay  at  Mr.  Triibner's  in  Lon 
don  when  we  go  there. 

We  are  sorry  that  Mr.  Thomson  and  family 
are  coming  abroad.  We  would  like  them  to 
stay  in  our  house  for  another  year.  If  you 
hear  of  anybody  else  who  wants  it  I  know  you 
will  secure  them.  We  spent  this  morning  in 
the  great  picture  gallery,  but  though  it  is  one 
of  the  finest  in  the  world  it  is  not  warmed,  and 
the  thermometers  were  at  freezing-point.  It 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  393 

was  so  curious  to  find  all  the  old  pictures  just 
where  they  were  23  years  ago,  and  I  knew 
just  where  to  look  for  them.  Belle  was  quite 
pleased  to  find  the  originals  of  the  engrav 
ings  which  I  have  at  home,  —  the  Veronica, 
Virgin,  &c. 

I  often  say  to  Belle  that  you  would  so  much 
enjoy  the  French  dinners  here  abroad,  and  to 
day  after  our  little  filet  of  beef  and  mushrooms, 
with  salad,  and  a  bottle  of  good  plain  red 
wine,  the  Roquefort  cheese  (which  was  strong 
enough  to  lift  your  hat),  and  the  coffee  ditto, 
made  me  think  of  your  dinners  and  your  own 
fondness  for  that  noble  cheese.  But  they  have 
cheeses  in  France  such  as  we  never  get  at 
home,  and  the  Dutchmen's  heads  in  Holland 
are  so  rich  and  sweet  that  what  we  get  is 
like  dry  bread  compared  to  them.  In  Prague 
there  are  wines  —  Melniker,  Ofner,  Adels- 
berger,  &c.,  only  30  cents  a  bottle  at  the  best 
hotels,  which  are  equal  to  first-class  claret, 
with  rich  flavor  and  fine  quality. 

Going  from  Prague,  day  before  yesterday, 
there  was  a  very  nice  old  lady  in  the  car.  She 
asked  me  if  I  had  ever  known  Fanny  Janau- 
schek,  the  actress,  and  when  I  told  her  she 
was  quite  a  friend  of  mine  the  old  dame  said 


394  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Frl.  Janauschek  was  her  niece.  She  was  a  real 
Bohemian,  but  talked  German  and  treated  us 
to  wine  and  bread.  In  Prague,  Belle  and  I 
went  to  a  ladies'  club-room  founded  by  a 
wealthy  man  named  Wojtech  Naprstak,  who 
was  for  many  years  an  editor  in  America. 
He  looked  out  with  great  pleasure  articles  on 
me  in  the  Cyclopaedia,  &c.,  and  gave  Belle 
photographs  of  all  the  ladies  —  all  Bohemians 
and  many  of  them  noble  —  with  pictures  of 
Prague.  He  also  was  very  flush  with  wine, 
&c.  So  that  we  get  along  pretty  sociably 
with  the  aborigines,  as  you  see.  In  a  few  days 
we  shall  be  at  Venice.  I  have  been  rubbing 
up  my  Italian  and  shall  do  very  well.  As  for 
German,  the  old  Munich  lingo  is  like  an  old 
tune  to  my  ears  and  I  almost  think  in  it  now. 
...  I  am  in  good  health  generally  speak 
ing.  Ever  truly, 

CHARLES  G.  LELAND. 

I  give  the  two  following  letters  because 
the  first  is  a  delightful  example  of  the  non 
sense  he  could  write  when  in  the  vein,  and 
because  the  second  records  the  manner  of  his 
reception  in  London,  with  details  he  might 
have  hesitated  to  chronicle  more  seriously. 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  395 

One  word  of  warning:  the  reader,  before 
beginning  the  first  letter,  had  better  take 
breath  as  the  writer  did  in  finishing  it. 

CHARLES   GODFREY  LELAND   TO   MRS.   JOHN    HARRISON 

HOTEL  IMPERIAL,  PARIS,  May  n,  1870. 

DEAR  SISTER  EMILY,  —  O  we  have  seen  so 
much  since  I  wrote  to  you,  whereas  we  have 
been  in  Italy  and  beheld  great  multitudes  of 
figs  growing  on  the  trees,  also  sundry  oranges 
and  many  lemons,  where  Belle  went  down  on 
her  knees  before  the  Pope,  and  the  beggar- 
girls  and  priests  with  little  tin  boxes  de 
manded  alms,  and  one  day  a  republican  in 
the  Via  Condotti  before  our  very  window 
trod  on  a  capucin's  shoe  and  he  howled  and 
cursed  so  that  the  row  was  quite  delight 
ful,  and  then  sat  down  in  the  street  and  had 
his  shoe  blacked  and  kept  on  howling  as  he 
sat,  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  for  we  lived  in  the 
Via  Condotti  near  the  Piazza  di  Spagna,  only 
it  was  not  a  piazza  such  as  you  have  in  Amer 
ica,  but  an  open  place  with  a  fountain  wherein 
was  Neptune  and  other  idological  beings,  and 
the  Romans  sat  on  the  stairs  in  their  national 
dress  to  be  hired  out  as  models,  and  Spill- 
man's  confectionery  was  just  opposite,  where 


396  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

every  fashionable  lady  went  to  get  luncheon 
and  they  charged  ten  cents  for  a  little  mite 
of  a  glass  of  brandy  and  five  cents  for  cakes 
such  as  only  cost  2  in  Florence ;  but  this '  is 
not  the  Florence  on  the  Delaware,  but  in 
Italy,  where  they  called  it  Firenze,  and  where 
the  best  of  Cognac  is  only  five  francs  a  bottle 
at  Melini's,  who  has  the  best  sponge-cakes  in 
the  world,  much  better  than  the  biscuite  de 
Rheims  here  which  cost  10 cents  a  package; 
also  in  Italy  we  went  to  Verona,  which  was 
called  Bern  in  the  dark  ages  when  the  Ger 
mans  lived  there,  and  I  saw  a  part  of  the  old 
wall  and  churches  with  a  bronze  door  a  thou 
sand  years  old,  and  Roland  and  Oliver  and 
such  beautiful  poll  parrots  carved  on  the 
Cathedral,  with  other  mysterious  beings  such 
as  men  and  horses ;  as  also  in  Venice,  where 
we  went  in  gondolas  and  the  gondolier  begged 
for  more  money  than  he  was  entitled  to,  and 
we  also  went  to  the  Carnival  of  Venice,  which 
you  have  heard  played  on  hand-organs,  and 
there  was  a  man  with  a  mask  and  a  long 
beard  which  looked  just  like  me,  and  he  car 
ried  a  3-leg  stool  and  sat  down  opposite  me 
and  Belle,  and  stared  at  me  while  a  crowd 
collected  around  us ;  it  was  very  remarkable, 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  397 

while  the  whole  Place  of  St.  Mark's  was  lit 
up,  and  there  were  blue  lights  on  the  Campa 
nile,  which  is  400  feet  high,  and  almost  every 
body  had  masks  on  and  music  and  dancing 
on  a  platform  in  the  middle,  girls  and  men 
and  everybody  making  fun  and  people  all 
around  drinking  coffee,  which  reminds  me 
that  in  our  hotel  in  Rome  coffee  cost  10  cents 
a  cup  and  cigars  10  cents,  while  right  on  the 
other  side  of  the  wall  in  the  Greco  they  only 
charged  3  cents  for  better  coffee  and  3  ba- 
jocchi  for  a  cigar,  and  there  I  used  to  meet 
Mr.  Montalant  with  other  artists  and  talk 
about  how  bad  other  artists  painted.  .  .  . 

Well,  I  '11  take  breath  now,  and  say  that 
Belle  has  just  read  your  letter,  and  sends  her 
best  love,  and  mentions  that  she  wrote  to  you 
on  Sunday.  Paris  is  pleasanter  than  it  was 
last  year,  and  we  are  at  a  very  nice  little  hotel, 
rather  dear,  but  all  the  table  d'hote  people 
are  clever  Americans,  only  9  of  us  altogether, 
3  of  whom  are  old  friends :  Ida  and  Josephine 
Jones  and  their  mother,  whom  we  met  in 
Belgium,  also  in  Dresden.  Ida  is  a  perfect 
imp.  One  always  finds  plenty  of  acquaint 
ances  in  Paris.  It  was  all  nonsense  about 
sickness  in  Rome.  It  would  be  wonderful  if 


398   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

among  10,000  Americans,  most  of  whom  are 
quite  imprudent  and  all  worn  and  wearied 
with  sight-seeing  and  constant  gaiety,  after 
long  and  trying  travel,  a  few  did  not  die.  We 
kept  warm  and  dry  and  at  home  of  evenings. 
Belle  is  hard  at  work  sewing,  as  I  write,  with 
the  help  of  a  pretty  sewing  girl  who  talks  4 
languages,  and  who  asked  me  if  I  did  not 
find  Heine  easier  to  translate  than  Goethe 
or  Schiller.  I  do  have  the  queerest  luck  in 
meeting  people.  And  now  give  my  love  to 
everybody,  John,  Betty,  Fanny,  and  all. 
Ever  your  affectionate  brother, 

CHARLES. 

CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND  TO  MRS.  JOHN  HARRISON 

ABBEY  GARDENS,  ST.  JOHN'S  WOOD, 
LONDON,  June  27,  1870. 

DEER  EMELY,  —  Languidge  can  convey  no 
idea  of  the  wonderful  caryin  ons  wee  hav  had 
sense  i  rote  my  last :  grate  hevens !  we  go  to 
partys,  and  are  as  popular  as  strawbery  short 
cake,  gettin  wine  and  ice  kreem,  and  con- 
kerin  prejudis  by  the  bland  plumidge  of  cour 
tesy,  as  for  instance  yesterday  wen  lord  litten 
bulwer  told  me  to  go  before  him  down 
stares,  an  insted  of  makin  a  fus  i  went  ahed 


THE  FIRST   HOLIDAY  399 

and  wen  we  got  to  the  botom  bulwer  ses :  "  I 
hed  quite  a  spite  agin  you  wunst ;  my  frend 
lady  coraline  norten  would  persist  in  crackin 
you  up  so  always  and  a-praisin  you,  but  ive 
quite  got  over  it  now."  He  is  goin  to  cal  on 
me  and  bel.  This  wus  a  dinner  sort  of  a  lun- 
shen  giv  to  me  by  W.  Hepporth  dixen,  there 
was  only  grate  men  there :  6  or  7,  i  was  the 
seventh,  i  went  home  with  Jeoffreson  the 
noveliest  and  sir  tomas  hardy  (nabers  of 
ourn).  In  the  evenin  (sundy  of  corse)  we 
went  to  a  recepshen  party  late  in  the  evenin 
they  dansed  and  sung  jermen  student  songs, 
bel  did  n't  danse  as  she  was  to  tired.  Sater- 
day  we  were  at  a  grand  fete  shampeter,  given 
by  a  welthy  merchent  in  a  house  bilt  form- 
aly  by  Gorge  the  Forth  for  Mrs  fitshurbit, 
the  grounds  were  elegant  and  they  danst  in 
the  open  are,  but  this  was  meer  trash  to  the 
wun  we  went  2  on  friday  at  Mr  Bonn's  viller 
at  twikenem  —  grate  goodness  —  he  has  half 
a  milyen  dolers  worth  of  curiosities,  old 
armer,  faenza  ware,  ivery  carvins,  pictures, 
silver  things  of  the  middle  ages ;  a  little  wile 
ago  he  offered  3  thousand  pounds  reward  for 
a  reliquary  that  was  stole  from  him. 

Heer  were  many  distinguished  peple ;  old 


400  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

Georg  Gruikshank,  80  years  old,  danced  a 
cotillion  and  then,  wen  he  was  talkin  to  bel, 
danced  a  hilan  fling  —  Helen  Faucit  the  grate 
actriss  and  many  uthers.  Peple  crowded 
around  to  be  interduced  to  me,  numbers  of 
yung  ladeys  looked  on  as  if  imploaring  to  be 
acquanted,  so  I  went  around  and  shuk  hands 
impressively  with  them,  one  gal  said  thank  you 
and  severil  bowed  their  heds  with  emotion, 
there  feelins  was  2  mutch  for  them,  it  was  a 
seen  never  to  be  forgoten.  Wun  yung  gentle 
men  from  Oxf  ud,  a  son  of  my  f  rend  Sir  Charles 
lancaster,  heerd  that  the  orther  of  hans  breit- 
mann  was  there  and  he  went  prowlin  over 
the  grounds  asking  everybody  if  they  had 
seen  a  gentleman  who  looked  like  an  Ameri- 
ken.  He  informed  me  that  breitmann  was 
very  popular  in  Oxfud. 

The  uther  mornin  Jane  Ingelo  cum  to  see 
us  befoar  we  were  drest  —  she  hed  brought  a 
grate  boquait  for  bel  —  we  are  to  dine  at  her 
house  tomorow.  Jane  is  awful  nice  i  never  herd 
tell  of  an)'body  so  clever  she  thinks  a  grate 
deel  of  bel.  She  and  Lady  Locker  the  cister  of 
the  url  of  Elgin  boath  promist  to  cum  and  see 
bel  but  only  jane  hes  cum  as  yet.  I  made  thare 
akwaintance  i  day  wen  i  called  on  Alf  Teny- 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  401 

son.  I  dont  think  much  of  Alf  as  a  talkist, 
he  tried  three  times  to  talk  to  me  but  made 
a  poor  fist  of  it.  Yesterday  at  lunshen  a  gen 
tleman  who  hed  never  seen  bulwer  before 
and  did  nt  know  who  he  wus,  said  "  Wot  a 
fine  bulwerian  hed !  "  this  wus  about  as  good 
a  thing  as  i  got  off  on  sir  charles  Dilk  the 
grate  English  statesman  the  uther  nite.  i  was 
dinen  with  dilk,  and  after  dinner  i  was  show- 
in  some%  of  Blake's  crazy  pictures  to  a  little 
Frenchman,  and  explanein  to  him.  "  Blake  " 
sez  i  to  the  Frenchman,  "  if  he  hed  been  a 
grate  artist  would  have  been  a  Dore  "  or  as  I 
sed  "  Cetait  un  Dore  manque?  (N  Bee.  this 
is  french.)  He  smiled  out  loud,  i  thought  i 
had  sed  quite  a  pointed  thing,  i  did  n't  see 
the  point  though  till  after  the  Frenchman 
had  gone.  It  was  Dore  himself ! 

i  belong  for  a  month  to  the  atheneum  club, 
only  very  grate  litery  men  are  alowed  to  go 
inside,  comon  people  gets  druv  out.  i  'spose 
you  hev  seen  my  comin  to  England  in  the 
papers,  the  London  "  Fun  "  asks  "  Wen  will 
Leland?".  .  . 

Of  the  meny  American  and  English  frends 
who  have  been  arter  us  it  boots  not  hear  2 
speak.  We  live  in  a  litel  bit  of  a  house  but  in 


402  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

a  plesent  naburhood,  near  Mr  Trubner's  on 
purpose  to  be  near  them.  They  are  good- 
natured  nice  people  who  hev  a  grate  deel  of 
compenny  and  pour  out  wine  like  water. 
Mrs  Triibner  can  talk  english  french  german 
and  Flemish  all  like  a  native.  She  is  a  neese 
of  lord  Napier  and  her  father  is  the  distin 
guish  riter  Delepierre.  To  nite  we  are  goin 
to  see  La  Belle  Sauvage.  With  grate  afex- 
tion  to  all  i  am  your  loving  deer  bruther : 
CHARLEY  G.  LELAND. 
P.S.  Bulwerhasjustsentmeannoat  invitin 
me  to  cum  and  live  with  him  nex  weak  at  his 
howse  in  the  country  —  ime  a  goin.  i  go  as 
wun  of  the  famaly.  Good  bye. 

"  Without  the  personal  interest  of  some 
body,  it  is  impossible  to  see  anything  in  this 
country,"  Dr.  Holmes  declared  when  Eng 
land  was  still  for  him  "  a  nation  of  sulky  sui 
cides."  He  was  right.  Present  the  desired 
credentials  in  England,  and  every  man's  house 
is  your  castle;  present  none,  and  every  door 
is  slammed  in  your  face.  No  people  are  as 
hospitable  as  the  English,  none  as  inhospita 
ble.  But  the  Rye  had  come  with  the  correct 
credentials.  I  do  not  mean  only  the  fame  of 


THE   FIRST  HOLIDAY  403 

Hans  Breitmann.  He  had  also  the  right  sort 
of  introductions  to  the  right  sort  of  men,  and 
thirty  years  ago  the  "  American  Invasion " 
had  not  yet  been  heard  of  and  an  American 
was  still  run  after  as  a  novelty,  a  crank,  the 
sort  of  "society  curiosity"  men  like  Lord 
Houghton  were  always  wanting  "  to  bring 
oiit."  And  fairly  launched,  his  personality 
could  be  left  to  do  the  rest  —  as  it  did  very 
successfully.  I  have  been  told  by  Englishmen, 
who  were  then  "  the  younger  men,"  how  much 
it  meant  to  them  in  those  days,  and  how  great 
was  their  excitement,  when  asked  to  meet 
Hans  Breitmann.  By  this  time  his  health 
had  in  a  good  measure  returned,  and  with  its 
return  some  little  of  that  sudden  distaste  for 
society,  felt  in  Paris,  had  passed.  He  never 
cared  again  for  theatres  and  operas  and  balls, 
but  the  letters  bear  witness  to  the  social  pleas 
ures  into  which  he  entered  with  zest.  Club 
life,  too,  as  he  found  it  at  the  Savile,  where 
there  was  a  group  of  literary  men  in  sympa 
thy  with  him,  he  enjoyed. 

During  the  nine  years  he  now  gave  to 
England,  he  made  no  settled  home  until 
toward  the  very  last,  when  he  took  a  house 
in  Park  Square,  —  close  to  Regent's  Park,  — 


404   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

where  he  and  Mrs.  Leland  had  with  them  the 
two  young  daughters  and  son  of  friends  who 
had  recently  died,  and  to  whose  children  they 
kindly,  from  no  other  motive  but  sheer  good 
nature,  undertook  to  act  for  a  while  as  guar 
dians.  It  was  in  the  Park  Square  house  that 
he  and  my  aunt  gave  the  brilliant  Saturday 
evenings  to  which  all  London  crowded.  But 
until  they  established  themselves  there,  when 
they  were  not  staying  with  the  Triibners, 
their  headquarters  in  London  were  either  at 
the  Langham  Hotel  or  in  apartments  in  the 
neighbourhood.  But  there  were  winters  spent 
at  Brighton  and  Oatlands  Park,  summers 
here,  there,  and  everywhere  in  the  English 
and  Welsh  country,  and  those  wanderings 
can  be  followed  in  the  letters  to,  as  well  as 
from,  him. 

As  in  all  this  correspondence,  my  pleas 
ure  is  greatest  —  because  I  think  his  would 
have  been  —  in  the  letters  from  two  old 
friends,  I  quote  these  first,  though  they  re 
late  less  directly  to  his  own  life  than  many 
of  the  others.  One  friend  was  Oliver  Wen 
dell  Holmes,  whom  the  Rye  had  got  to  know 
well  during  that  year  in  Boston,  and  the  other 
was  George  Boker,  whom  he  had  always 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  405 

known  still  better  from  the  days  when  they 
were  in  frocks  and  pinafores. 

The  Rye  felt  the  almost  universal  love  of 
the  reading  public  for  Dr.  Holmes,  and  his 
respect  and  admiration  for  the  doctor's  work 
was  great.  I  can  remember  how,  when  I 
started  on  my  journalistic  career,  he  urged 
me  to  write  for  advice  and  help  to  the  kindly 
Autocrat  in  Boston,  so  that  I  cannot  even  yet 
rid  myself  of  the  belief  that  to  receive  a  let 
ter  from  Dr.  Holmes,  and  I  did  receive  one, 
was  the  first  step  towards  literary  success,  — 
not  so  original  a  belief  as  I  supposed  when 
I  wrote,  five  thousand  among  poets  alone, 
according  to  Mr.  Aldrich's  liberal  estimate, 
having  shared  it  with  me.  I  am  sure  the 
Autocrat  would  have  liked  it,  could  he  have 
read  the  note  in  the  "Memoranda"  (1893) 
which  dwells  pleasantly  on  him  as  "  far  above 
any  other  man  whom  I  can  now  recall,  apt 
at  illustration,  marvellous  in  memory,  quick 
with  appropriate  anecdote,  judicious  and 
sensible  in  his  views,  and  genial  in  every 
thing."  The  doctor's  letters  were  not  of  a 
kind  to  cool  this  admiration,  once  it  had  been 
inspired,  and  I  am  the  more  glad  to  quote 
one  of  them  here  because  it  is  not  included 


406   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

in  any  of  his  published  correspondence.  One 
of  the  first  in  my  packet  was  written  early 
in  1872.  The  allusions  in  it  explain  them 
selves.  We  might  wonder  that  so  much 
feeling  is  shown  about  Motley,  when  almost 
two  years  had  passed  since  his  recall,  if  we 
did  not  know  how  much  longer  this  feel 
ing  lasted,  not  only  with  Dr.  Holmes,  but 
with  all  Motley's  friends.  Even  in  1879, 
Lowell,  writing  from  Madrid,  to  announce 
his  intention  of  remaining  there,  added 
promptly,  "  if  they  don't  Motleyize  me." 
The  reference  to  Sumner  is  just  what  might 
be  expected  from  the  Autocrat,  who  always 
"  liked  Sumner's  talk "  about  things,  as  he 
told  another  correspondent  many  years  later 
on,  even  while  he  smiled  in  that  kindly  way 
of  his  at  the  "  exaggerated  personality." 

OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES    TO   CHARLES   GODFREY 
LELAND 

CHARLES  ST.,  1872. 

v.  .  I  have  for  the  last  year  lived  in  a 
house  which  we  have  built  and  the  address 
of  which  you  may  see  above.  It  is  a  great 
improvement  in  position,  and  I  think  you 
would  say  that  my  study,  with  its  bay  windows 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  407 

looking  out  over  the  broad*  expanse  of  the 
river,  was  too  good  for  any  but  an  honest 
man  and  brother  author. 

...  I  have  a  great  deal  to  tell  you  about 
your  friends  of  the  Saturday  Club.  Agassiz 
has  gone  off  on  an  expedition  ;  he  has  found 
a  fish's  nest  in  certain  masses  of  gulf-weed 
and  seems  to  be  supremely  happy  about  it. 
Nobody  is  so  rich  as  a  naturalist.  You  come 
across  something  nasty  and  poke  it  with  a 
stick  and  say  it  stinks  (good  English  words 
both,  are  they  not?),  and  he  springs  at  it, 
calls  it  by  a  Latin  name  and  bags  it  and 
carries  it  off  as  if  it  were  a  nugget  of  virgin 
gold.  Agassiz  has  almost  entirely  recovered 
from  his  very  alarming  attack  of  a  year  or 
two  ago.  The  rest  are  as  you  left  them.  We 
have  pretty  full  and  very  pleasant  meetings. 
I  think  nobody  is  more  constant  at  them 
than  I  am.  That  and  a  dinner  party  now 
and  then  make  up  my  dissipations. 

Last  summer  I  spent  a  week  at  a  country 
house  with  Charles  Sumner,  whom  in  spite 
of  the  somewhat  exaggerated  personality  of 
which  some  complain  I  always  find  full  of 
knowledge  such  as  I  like  to  listen  to.  Mot 
ley  has  never  returned  to  America  since  his 


408   CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

most  unexpected  recall  as  Minister.  He  and 
his  family  are  at  the  Hague,  where  the  Queen 
of  Holland  makes  much  of  them  as  I  hear. 
I  feel  very  sorry  for  his  great  disappoint 
ment,  which  I  do  not  think  he  has  deserved, 
but  which  I  am  disposed  to  attribute  to  in 
direct  and  not  very  creditable  influences.  I 
cannot  believe  that  if  Mr.  Sumner  and  the 
President  had  not  fallen  out,  our  friend  could 
ever  have  been  subjected  to  such  an  indignity. 
The  reference  to  the  old  house  which  you 
speak  of  was  in  the  first  number  of  a  new 
series  of  articles  I  am  writing  for  the  "  At 
lantic  Monthly"  under  the  title  "  The  Poet  at 
the  Breakfast-Table."  I  have  long  thought 
that  as  I  had  spoken  often  of  two  characters 
besides  the  "  Autocrat,"  namely  the  "  Profes 
sor  "  and  the  "  Poet,"  I  would  finish  the  series 
by  a  third  volume,  and  my  two  instalments  of 
this  last  have  been  very  kindly  received.  I 
am  glad  to  hear  that  you  have  secured  your 
audience,  for  I  feel  sure  you  can  keep  it 
when  it  has  once  taken  hold.  Don't  break 
your  neck  or  your  legs  hunting  (as  poor 
Jerry  Whipple  —  you  did  n't  know  him  ?  — 
did  at  Pau  —  one  of  his  legs,  that  is),  for  there 
would  be  mourning  in  two  worlds  for  Hans 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  409 

Breitmann.  How  well  I  remember  the  first 
time  I  read  one  of  those  famous  poems! 
Their  bones  are  full  of  marrow.  If  the  new 
poems  are  as  good  in  their  way  as  the  others 
were  in  their  own  vein,  your  triumphant  suc 
cess  is  assured.  We  are  just  trying  for  an 
International  Copyright,  which  I  hope  will 
by  and  by  put  a  good  many  guineas  in  your 
pocket.  .  .  . 

The  next  letter  in  the  packet  from  Dn 
Holmes  is  dated  July  18,  1881,  when  the 
Rye  was  back  in  America, —  in  Philadelphia, 
—  and  it  would  be  going  ahead  a  trifle  fast 
to  give  it  just  here. 

Into  the  Rye's  friendship  with  George 
Boker  there  entered  a  deeper,  warmer  feel 
ing.  Their  intimacy,  as  Boker  once  wrote, 
was  "almost  that  of  brothers."  "Dear  old 
Charley,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  letters,  —  and 
the  "  Charley "  gives  the  measure  of  their 
friendship,  —  "  you  are  the  only  man  living 
with  whom  I  can  play  the  fool  through  a 
long  letter  and  be  sure  that  I  shall  be  clearly 
understood  at  the  end.  To  say  that  this  priv 
ilege  is  cheerful  is  to  say  little,  for  it  is  the 
breath  of  life  to  a  man  of  a  certain  humour," 


410  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

—  especially  if  that  man  happens  to  be  alone 
in  a  foreign  land,  his  daily  life  hedged  about 
with  the  form  and  ceremonial  of  diplomacy. 
When  I  recall  my  uncle's  friends,  Boker  is 
always  the  foremost  figure,  and  a  very  splen 
did  figure  as  I  remember,  still  the  Apollo  he 
had  been  called  in  his  youth,  though  I  only 
knew  him  in  his  middle  age,  when  his  hair 
was  already  white.  I  can  see  him  yet,  his 
handsome  head  high  above  the  crowd  in 
Chestnut  Street,  where  he,  like  Walt  Whit 
man  and  my  uncle  too,  was  apt  to  take  his 
stroll  at  the  end  of  the  day's  work.  Philadel 
phia  is  supposed  to  yield  only  commonplace, 
but  I  often  wonder  if  three  finer,  more  strik 
ing  men  were  ever  met  anywhere  than  those 
three,  who,  in  the  days  of  which  I  speak,  were 
to  be  passed  almost  every  fine  afternoon,  as 
they  swaggered  down  from  Broad  Street  to 
Seventh,  before  Walt  took  the  horse-car ;  or 
still  further  down,  past  the  "Ledger"  office, 
with  a  smile  and  a  shrug  perhaps  for  the 
great  man  within  dispensing  cups  and  sau 
cers;  or  past  the  "Press"  office,  where  the 
Rye  and  Boker,  each  in  his  different  way, 
had  been  an  influence  and  a  power.  It  will  be 
long  before  Philadelphia  can  show  three  such 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  411 

men  again,  though  while  they  were  alive,  in 
true  Philadelphia  fashion,  Philadelphia  made 
as  little  of  them  as  it  conveniently  could. 

Good  looks  were  not  George  Boker's  only 
merit.  He  was  the  truest  and  kindest  of 
friends,  —  "the  good  and  dear  Boker"  even 
to  Mr.  John  Morley,  who  knew  him  infinitely 
less  well.  If  his  letters  begin  only  with  the 
seventies,  it  is  easily  understood,  for  the  two 
friends  were  always  together,  except  during 
the  Rye's  first  stay  abroad.  But  it  was  early 
in  the  seventies  that  George  Boker  was  sent 
as  United  States  Minister  to  Constantinople, 
and  what  letters  there  are,  therefore,  were 
written  during  the  most  interesting  and  ac 
tive  part  of  his  career. 

The  first  is  from  Philadelphia,  on  Christ 
mas  Eve,  1871,  and  announces  the  Turkish 
Mission,  and  also  the  progress  of  "  Meister 
Karl,"  that  Boker  was  seeing  through  the 
Press. 

GEORGE  H.  BOKER  TO  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

PHILADELPHIA,  Dec.  24,  1871. 

MY  DEAR  CHARLEY,  —  The  scarcest  thing 
with  me  just  now  is  time.  I  might  give  you 
a  shilling  at  a  pinch,  but  a  half  hour  is  an 


4i2  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

article  which  I  do  not  happen  to  have  about 
me.  I  am  in  a  whirl  of  preparation  for  my 
departure  from  America.  .  .  .  My  passage 
is  taken  in  the  "  Algeria  "  for  the  loth  of 
January,  and  I  shall  start  then,  provided  the 
State  Department  do  not  detain  me  for  some 
foolish  purpose  of  its  own.  I  hope  that  you 
will  have  taken  up  your  abode  in  London  by 
the  time  I  arrive.  .  .  . 

"  Meister  Karl "  is  not  yet  out,  which  is 
queer,  for  my  patchwork  was  finished  a  month 
ago.  Long-headed  Fop !  he  is  waiting  for  some 
thing  to  turn  up,  I  suppose.  By  the  way, 
your  rhapsody  over  the  East  in  "  M.  K."  had 
something  to  do  with  my  acceptance  of  the 
Turkish  Mission  ;  and  if  you  have  been  lying, 
I  shall  find  you  out,  old  boy :  so  it  would  be 
well  for  you  to  add  a  note  about  the  fleas,  and 
the  cholera,  and  the  plague,  et  id  genus  omne, 
to  save  your  reputation,  for  which  I  tremble. 
The  next  time  I  address  you,  it  will  be  face 
to  face,  laus  Deo  ! 

The  letters  from  Constantinople  have  more 
than  a  personal  interest.  Boker  knew  —  none 
better  —  and  could  himself  see  the  sort  of 
picturesqueness  that  appealed  most  power- 


THE  FIRST  HOLIDAY  413 

fully  to  his  friend,  for  whom  he  was  always 
ready  to  make  picturesque  notes  of  it.  But 
in  his  account  of  his  own  work,  he  was  giving, 
without  dreaming  that  he  would  ever  reach  a 
larger  public,  an  excellent  idea  of  the  diffi 
culties  common  to  all  American  diplomats 
abroad  :  "  All  alone,  without  a  human  being 
I  had  ever  seen  before  in  my  life,  and  with 
unaccustomed  duties,  feeling  as  if  I  were 
beset  with  snares  on  every  hand,  obliged  to 
carry  on  the  greater  part  of  my  business  in 
a  strange  tongue  "  —  Lowell  wrote  to  Tom 
Hughes  from  Madrid.  And  in  practically 
the  same  terms,  Boker  reports  his  initiation 
into  diplomacy  in  the  first  letter  to  the  Rye 
from  the  Legation  at  Constantinople. 

GEORGE    H.    BOKER  TO   CHARLES   GODFREY   LELAND 

July  2;th,  1872. 

.  .  .  You  must  remember  that  I  had  no 
experience  in  diplomacy,  no  knowledge  even 
of  the  routine  of  business,  and  not  the  small 
est  acquaintance  with  the  Turkish  language. 
For  these  things  I  was  wholly  dependent 

upon ,  and  him  I  was  warned  to  distrust. 

I  was  therefore  obliged  to  scrutinise  all  that 
he  did  and  all  that  he  counselled  with  that 


414  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

sort  of  suspicious  care  which  doubled  the 
work.  ...  I  shall  not  weary  you  with  a  his 
tory  of  my  apprenticeship  in  diplomacy.  You 
may  fancy  how  difficult  it  has  been,  what  cau 
tion  and  exhaustive  inquiry  it  needed,  and 
what  a  sea  of  labours  I  struggled  through  un 
til  I  reached  my  present  position  of  security. 
Now  I  do  not  feel  myself  to  be  deficient  be 
fore  my  older  diplomatic  colleagues ;  besides 
possessing  certain  mental  qualifications,  which 
you  know  all  about,  and  with  which  heaven 
has  not  blessed  all  men  equally,  I  am  Sure 
of  this :  that  if  you  saw  me  transacting  my 
business  with  the  false,  wily  Orientals,  at  the 
Sublime  Porte,  or  with  the  foreign  ministers 
at  one  of  their  scheming  general  meetings, 
you  would  not  feel  ashamed  of  the  figure  cut 
on  these  occasions  by  the  man  who  for  many 
a  long  year  has  been  almost  your  brother  — 
wholly  indeed  your  brother  in  spirit  if  not  by 
the  ties  of  blood.  .  .  . 

How  often  I  think  of  you  as  I  am  making 
my  way  through  the  motley  crowds  of  Con 
stantinople,  or  surveying  the  strange,  wild 
landscape  as  I  drive  through  the  country ! 
Talk  of  languages !  There  is  not  a  bootblack 
who  cannot  speak  half  a  dozen,  and  the  at- 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  415 

tainments  of  some  men,  who  have  knocked 
about  a  little,  are  to  me  wonderful.  For  ex 
ample,  we  have  a  man  in  the  consulate  who 
speaks  eleven  languages  fluently,  and  yet 
who  cannot  write  his  own  name  in  any  one 
of  them.  All  the  natives  here,  almost  with 
out  exception,  speak  Turkish,  Greek,  Italian, 
French,  and  Armenian.  Some  of  them  have 
a  smattering  of  English  also.  You  would 
revel  in  the  "  Grande  Rue  de  Pera ; "  you 
would  go  wild  with  excitement  if  you  stood 
upon  the  bridge  which  crosses  the  Golden 
Horn,  and  saw  the  wonderfully  costumed 
crowd  go  by  you,  and  listened  to  the  vari 
ous  languages  which  the  individuals  uttered. 
Within  a  mile  of  me  —  for  I  am  now  living 
at  Therapia  upon  the  Bosphorus  —  there  is 
a  delicious  encampment  of  the  black  tents  of 
a  tribe  of  Gypsies.  How  you  would  like  to 
get  among  them !  Whenever  one  of  the  little 
black-skinned  devils  of  children  runs  out  to 
me  with  his  or  her  "  Cheeli,  chelibi,  cheeli ! " 
I  always  think  of  you,  and  give  the  impudent 
beggar  a  piastre  for  your  sake.  .  .  . 

By  the  way,  the  Khedive  is  here  at  present, 
and  I  like  him  much,  and  I  like  his  prime 
minister,  Nubar  Pacha,  still  better.  They 


4i6  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

have  invited  me  to  go  up  the  Nile  next  win 
ter,  and  I  am  going,  to  be  sure.  Would  you 
not  like  to  come  along  with  me?  If  so,  I 
shall  be  glad  to  make  room  for  you  in  our 
party.  On  the  whole,  why  should  you  not  go? 
You  ought  to  see  the  Nile  before  you  die, 
and  here  is  an  excellent  chance,  and  in  such 
company  as  will  open  all  Egypt  before  you. 
Think  of  this  seriously.  Of  course,  as  Mrs. 
Boker  will  go,  you  will  take  Madame  Belle 
with  you,  and  we  shall  be  as  happy  as  Heaven 
together  for  two  months  at  least. 

The  trip  up  the  Nile  was  made,  and  under 
the  most  favorable  circumstances,  the  Ameri 
can  minister's  friends  being  the  guests  of  the 
Khedive,  of  whom  one  of  the  party  could  but 
approve.  "Extremes  meet,"  I  read  in  the 
"  Memoranda."  "  The  Khedive  Ishmael  was 
the  only  man  I  ever  met  in  Egypt  who  could 
tell  me  anything  about  the  Gypsies  of  that 
country."  The  chronicle  of  the  journey  —  the 
"  Paradise  "  Boker  predicted  —  is  the  "  Egyp 
tian  Sketch  Book  "  (Triibner,  1873),  that  curi 
ous  medley  of  knowledge  and  fun  never  at 
any  time  appreciated,  and  now,  I  am  afraid, 
neglected  altogether.  Innocents  Abroad  may 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  417 

be  tolerated  in  Europe,  but,  apparently,  the  line 
must  be  drawn  at  gaiety  in  Egypt.  And  the 
book  is  gay.  The  Rye,  who  had  written  glow 
ingly,  even  a  little  exaltedly,  of  the  "  Morning 
Land  "  before  he  knew  it,  once  he  got  there, 
could  not  help  seeing  it  as  it  really  is,  with 
the  fleas  and  the  flies  and  the  beggars  and 
all  the  other  nuisances  Boker  had  once  rallied 
him  for  ignoring.  And  perhaps,  in  the  hon 
esty  of  reaction,  he  made  a  little  too  much  of 
them.  But  he  enjoyed  everything  with  the 
high  spirits  of  a  schoolboy  off  for  a  holiday, 
describing  discomforts  and  disappointments 
and  absurdities,  not  with  the  traveller's  usual 
ill-temper  and  pettishness,  but  always  with 
a  sense  of  their  humorous  aspect,  combined 
with  a  keenness  of  observation  and  a  com 
prehension  of  the  country,  its  people,  and  its 
traditions  that  would  set  up  a  whole  army  of 
travel-writers  for  life.  The  book  was  dedi 
cated  to  Boker,  who,  back  at  his  post  in  Con 
stantinople,  wrote  many  more  letters  —  so 
many  more  records  of  hard  work  —  of  which 
this  is  a  fair  specimen :  - 

"  For  the  last  year  my  diplomatic  life  has 
been  one  unending  and  violent  wrangle  with 
the  Turks.  I  have  fought  them  at  all  points 


4i8  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

that  can  be  raised  by  the  Capitulations,  the 
Treaties,  or  by  Ottoman  Law,  and  I  have 
licked  them  at  the  same ;  but  even  the  victor 
suffers  with  the  wear  and  the  tear  of  such 
struggles.  Besides  these  wordy  fights,  I  have 
negotiated  the  treaties  and  signed  a  protocol 
with  the  circumcised ;  so  that,  in  spite  of  my 
bad  health,  I  have  done  my  official  duty  so 
well  that  my  Government  did  that  rare  thing, 
it  condescended  to  thank  me,  and  to  con 
gratulate  me  on  my  success  —  a  thing  which 
may  not  happen  to  the  hoariest  diplomat 
once  in  a  lifetime  [and  I  wonder  to  how 
many  of  his  already  forgotten  successors  it 
has  happened].  For  all  that,  I  am  not  so  set 
up  as  I  might  be.  I  still  bend  to  salute  the 
average  man,  on  Sundays,  and  altogether  I 
am  not  so  disagreeable  as  you  might  natu 
rally  suppose  me  to  be,  as  I  still,  on  logical 
compulsion,  admit  my  mortality  and  its  mys 
terious  consequences." 

This,  truly,  was  "  playing  the  fool,"  for 
George  Boker,  the  most  natural,  least  affected 
of  men,  with  a  head  too  strong  to  be  turned 
by  any  triumph  of  his  own  or  any  praise  of 
others  —  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  for 
the  heads  of  many  American  ministers  and 


THE   FIRST   HOLIDAY  419 

ambassadors  now-a-days.  The  Nile  journey 
was  in  1873.  In  March,  1875,  thanks  to  the 
Government  he  had  toiled  for,  he  was  "  able 
to  shake  the  dust  of  this  dismal  old  city  [Con 
stantinople]  from  my  shoes,  and  prepare  my 
toes  for  a  freezing  at  St.  Petersburg."  Pic- 
turesqueness  is  not  the  one  essential  to  hap 
piness  in  the  place  where  one's  tent  is  pitched. 
When  years  had  softened  the  reality,  he  could 
still  feel  and  write,  "  I  hate  the  East  so  pro 
foundly  that  I  should  not  return  to  it  if  there 
were  no  other  land  in  which  I  could  live." 
By  October,  1875,  it  was  from  the  Legation 
at  St.  Petersburg  that  the  story  of  hard  work 
and  heavy  responsibility  was  dated  :  — 

"  I  have  been  so  bedevilled  by  business  in 
my  particular  line,  so  thoroughly  engaged  in 
putting  things  to  rights  between  this  coun 
try  and  our  own,  so  forced  to  write,  write, 
write,  write,  whether  I  wished  to  do  it  or  not, 
that  I  rely  on  your  ancient  friendship  to 
spare  the  scolding  which  I  deserve  for  not 
having  written  to  you  before  now.  If  you 
like  Russia  so  much,  why  do  you  not  pay  me 
a  visit  during  the  coming  winter,  say  in  Janu* 
ary,  when  the  season  is  at  its  height  ?  I  can 
board,  lodge,  and  take  care  of  you  generally, 


420  CHARLES  GODFREY  LELAND 

and  you  know  how  glad  I  shall  be  to  have 
you  with  me." 

Perhaps  it  is  because  the  Rye  accepted 
this  invitation,  spending  the  winter  of  1876 
in  St.  Petersburg,  that  two  or  three  more  let 
ters,  or  rather  notes,  complete  the  series  from 
the  Legation.  But  then,  there  are  the  Rye's 
articles  on  the  "  Russian  Gypsies,"  more  elo 
quent  as  chronicle  than  the  "  Egyptian  Sketch 
Book ;  "  in  them,  nothing  of  American  diplo 
macy,  but  a  great  deal  of  Russian  music,  —  the 
"  plaintive  song  "  of  the  troika  bells,  the  mad 
song  of  the  Gypsy  girls.  Never  did  he  listen 
to  music  more  to  his  liking,  seldom  did  he 
give  to  his  writing  so  much  of  the  swing,  so 
much  of  the  sadness  and  the  madness  of  it,  as 
in  these  articles,  first  printed  in  "  Macmillan's 
Magazine"  (November  and  December,  1879), 
and  afterwards  as  a  chapter  in  "  The  Gypsies  " 
(Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1882). 


END    OF    VOLUME    I 


tttoetpibe 

Elsctrotyped  and  printed  by  H.  O.  tfoughton  <5^  Co. 
Cambridge,  Mass,  U.S.  A. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

RENEWED  BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO  IMMEDIATE 
RECALL 


LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 

Book  Slip-70m-9,'65(F7151s4)4i 


N°  444716 


PS2243 

'ennell,  E.R.  P4 

Charles  Godfrey  Leland.  v.l 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


